I hate that we’ve got to a place where auto-deleting messages is reasonable and so common

I hate that because I’ll forget to reach out to people. I forget what I’ve told them before. Anyone with whom I don’t chat often will be lost in the infinite history of contacts with empty chats, and that is just a barrier I have the hardest time getting over.

I understand perfectly why people do that, but fuck does that feel bad because I know I will have a hard time reaching out in the future….

@gwenthefops Flip side: Imagine that (much like what happened to a friend of mine) devices of your friends/partner/family get seized by the police (no matter the reason).

Mobile devices are insecure, so unless people you're talking to are super into privacy/security (which let's face it, unlikely with family and less-technical friends), they *will* get your chat history. Logs I've extracted from my friends phone showed that not only they pulled chat history, they unlocked the screen multiple times when phone was in police's hands and read their private conversations.

That's why I personally have auto-delete set to one week. I'm careful with my privacy/security, but they would only get past week of conversations if I would get compromised. Less potential for corrupt cop to find blackmail material or data to further compromise me (like bank details etc).

It's not weird to reach out to people if some time had passed. I was recently contacted by an old friend of mine from high-school. I assumed he forgot about me because a whole decade had passed since we saw each other. I was a bit worried that he had ulterior motives but he was just fighting crippling depression and forgot to reach out for such a long time. Next week we'll both be in our hometown and are planning to hang out with other friends from back then.

If you need notes, create automatic encrypted chat backups from $im_service with a cron job. That way you can still read the history, but it's also unlikely for an attacker to obtain blackmail material about you (or your friend group).

@gwenthefops from my point of view, having no auto delete feels analogous to having a camera videoing me irl the whole time, every action i do, every word i say, kept forever to be analysed later. with auto delete it's more like a dash cam that constantly overwrites the past but still keeps short term memory. i'm always okay adjusting the time intervall of auto delete and most of the time screenshots of important texts are fine with consent as well.

@gwenthefops Beep…. it is always sad for this one remembering a conversation… but not the details… just to be unable to find said notes.

It is what it is. It does not wish for other beings to change. And the vague memories will have to suffice.

@gwenthefops SAME this is me I hate auto-deleting messages, my memory is not good enough to have that

@ielenia @gwenthefops
Yeah my memory’s not great and I like to be able to go back in the past so to speak…

Search for a previous discussion, save an old photo, find what we talked about the few last times we interacted, or pinpoint dates and order of events in my life.

It’s also an incredible tool to remind me to be humble because lots of things didn’t happen the way I remember them

@gwenthefops i feel that

@melunaka @ielenia @gwenthefops same here

@darckcrystale @melunaka @ielenia @gwenthefops same, my memory is good enough to remember a conversation or a post happened, but I won’t remember details - just maybe enough to use search. Except if the posts are gone, I can’t do that

@melunaka @ielenia It also helps me from things that feel like gaslighting (but might legit be someone misremembering). It’s just useful to be able to refer back to written conversation

@darckcrystale @melunaka @ielenia @gwenthefops also in general this impermanence is scary. I have my own data (photos, screenshots, school and uni stuff, old projects, etc) archived and stretching back for 15 or so years, and I know it’s there and I I can refer to it. I also have news/blogs archives - RSS in thunderbird, for less long because i started with google reader (rip), but still for over a decade by now. But conversations with others? Anything goes

@melunaka @ielenia @gwenthefops yea - I rarely go back but sometimes I really do like having the history. especially with beings who are important to me.

@elly which is why I said, in the CW even, that I’m not asking for anyone to change, and in the message that I understand this level of paranoia is understandable.

I’m just whining that this is anti-accessibility, but i understand why some choose to enable it

@gwenthefops THIS

@gwenthefops what I dislike about disappearing messages is that I can't go back and refer to things already said. My memory is not perfect.

@gwenthefops I agree. I often remember enough of a conversation to grep for it but not enough to be sure of the details without checking.

I'm also used to IRC/email where storing messages is the responsibility of the client. I want local logs and don't want anyone else to be able to delete messages off my computer remotely.

@gwenthefops Full agreement from me. You can't stop people from copying the content of messages anyway, so they are really only useful if all parties:

1. mutually want to protect the confidentiality of their messages,
2. are in an environment where their devices may be unencrypted and/or they may be forced to unlock them, and
3. can't be trusted to voluntarily remove (or remember to remove) sensitive messages from their own devices.

Seems weird to have an overlap between 1 and 3 in my opinion 🤔 Or maybe I'm just missing something...