I mean… I come from the forum scene and they were always called PMs, as in Private Message. What in the hell does DM stand for and when did things change from people calling them PMs to DMs.

  • Match!!@pawb.social
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    1 year ago

    Twitter used Direct Message instead of Private Message because they needed to establish that there is legally no understanding of privacy for DMs, because Twitter will surrender the contents of DMs to law enforcement / government / data collection. Fediverse should also use DM because there is again no guarantee of privacy (and you do not expect there to be).

    • 0x4E4F@lemmy.rollenspiel.monsterOP
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      1 year ago

      Still, the conversation is private, as in not public. Even if it is surrendered to the authorities, the’ll probably never be released publicly (unless leaked).

      • Bookmeat@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s NOT private. Messenger providers don’t want the liability of claiming privacy where none is present.

          • mrcarrot@lemmy.calebmharper.com
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            1 year ago

            “Public domain” is a copyright term which isn’t really relevant here. The point the other user is trying to make is that, legally speaking, calling something “private” when it very well may be not private is at best disingenuous and at worst a lawsuit waiting to happen.

            • 0x4E4F@lemmy.rollenspiel.monsterOP
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              1 year ago

              Yeah, I know, I was just trying to clarify and couldn’t think of another term 🤷.

              The truth is, if you share something online, whether it be in a PM or publicly, it can never ever be considered private. However, a PM’s content is harder to get to than reading this comment for example, that was my point.

      • LiesSlander@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        I suppose it’s a slightly more accurate term. The messages here are not truly private since they are not encrypted, but since they are sent directly no one should read them in the normal course of using the platform. Calling them private might imply to people that other people cannot read them, rather than the reality that it is just very unlikely anyone will. I would also argue that if something is released to an authority it is not “private” even if it is not publicly available.

        Honestly, it doesn’t really matter which you use. People will generally understand either way, so you can go ahead and keep saying PM and others will say DM and we can all just understand that they mean the same thing.

    • cbarrick@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Fediverse should also use DM because there is again no guarantee of privacy (and you do not expect there to be).

      Matrix is the fediverse’s messaging platform. It has end-to-end encryption, so you do actually have a guarantee of privacy.