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.
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.
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).
It’s NOT private. Messenger providers don’t want the liability of claiming privacy where none is present.
I think I was clear, private as in not public. As in it’s not public domain.
“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.
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.
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.