What are your thoughts on Signal's policy for edited messages?

[PurpleDime]

@mooseberg

I had no idea the original message of Signal edits were visible, which feels like a privacy violation to me

I didn’t know about it either. I found out soon after the feature launched when a friend told me. It’s the same friend who left Telegram for Signal because of how they implemented deleted and edited messages.

@mooseberg

The idea that you should just delete your message if you don’t want the original to be read is fine… if you’re aware of that fact in the first place.

That’s the key part. I don’t think most people are aware, and, in my opinion, that is good enough of a reason to change it.

@seize

Assuming original messages, before an edit, are visible has been my default assumption about nearly all internet messaging/communication tools I’ve used over the years.

I don’t think most people make that assumption when the message is unread. That’s the point.

@DailyChems

I don’t think Signals threat model is to protect you against yourself.

That’s a fair argument. But when Proton Mail, and other email services allow you to unsend an email within minutes or seconds after you clicked send, aren’t they protecting you against yourself?

Signal was not the first messaging app to introduce editing sent messages. It was Telegram.
And as there are justified critiques for how Telegram implemented this feature, I think this is a justifiable one for Signal too. Signal chose to implement it this way.

I think it is a fair compromise to ask that if a message is unread, edits should not be visible to the receiver. But if it has been read, then it’s fair to show them the changes that were made.

@DailyChems

If they are getting so pissed about you getting something wrong (like mistakenly asking about an injured leg instead of an arm) it’s not the messengers problem.

I agree. It’s not Signal’s problem. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable to request a change to this feature all the same. It’s not Proton’s problem if you made a mistake in your email to a potential employer either, but it’s still nice to be able to unsend it.

@_TrustyRocinante

If you’re using Signal then I would assume you have some grasp on personal responsibility regarding handling your own data.

That may be true today because Signal is a very small player compared to its competitors, who are 20 times bigger. But would it be true if Signal was the most popular messaging app? Unlikely so. I don’t think it’s accurate to assume that if you use Apple, it’s because you care about privacy and hence have some grasp on personal responsibility regarding handling your data.

When I believed Telegram respected privacy, I tried to convince my friends to join, and I used privacy as my main argument. My friends did join Telegram, but not because of privacy. It was because of Telegram’s superior UI and UX over WhatsApp and the many features the latter didn’t have, like a desktop app. Also at the time, WhatsApp had an outage in many countries, and because of that, some people were more open to try alternatives.

There are people who use Signal primarily because their family or friend asked them to. Because they care about keeping in touch with them, they are willing to make that change. They are not moved by privacy. None of my friends or family are on Signal because of privacy.

@_TrustyRocinante

I think it also subtly promotes transparency and trust to the recipient in showing your mistakes and corrections, rather than the sometimes ominous “edited”.

I agree. But it’s a level of transparency that is not necessary, IMHO. Transparency is already present when there is an indicator that the message was edited. People can be put off by seeing your process and revisions, especially if it’s not pretty. As the saying goes, you only get one chance to make a first impression.

At one of my previous jobs, I used to stay up late because I was overwhelmed by the workload and the tasks I had to do. It was extremely anxiety-inducing. I had just started the job. My boss didn’t know I worked late. I sent my reports to her the moment I finished them, that is, at 2 o’clock in the morning.

Although my boss only read those reports at 9 when she got into her office, she saw the time at which I sent them, and she called me to her office. To her, it was clearly a sign that I could not handle the job if such tasks took me this long. If I had scheduled my emails to be sent at 9 am, which was not possible, my boss would have never gotten that negative impression of me.

@_TrustyRocinante

But 99% of the time it will be typos and readability fixes that people edit messages for.

That is certainly my experience. But in a work context, people can be judged for that too. And people often won’t judge you the same based on who you are. An Italian person might be judged less harshly than a Chinese person if they make the same English spelling mistakes and both work for the same company in the US or UK. I have definitely observed this.

@_TrustyRocinante

I edit my comments on this forum often because I’m impatient

I hear you. But this post is not about PG. I am not advocating for PG to hide edits. I am specifically talking about Signal, in the context where the message was unread by the recipient.

@Treant

If you can’t control yourself enough to not send harsh words that you will regret later then it’s not Signal’s job to help bail you out.

It’s not about harsh words. I gave examples where there are no harsh words and the recipient is still upset.

@Treant

Edit history always seemed to me to be an important log for potentially abusive messages. If someone was sent a threatening message or something constituting harassment, the edit history ensures the message can’t just be redacted/changed to something unremarkable to protect the sender from consequences.

This is certainly good argument for it.

@Expert4870

I don’t use Signal—I use Molly.

I have Molly on my phone, but I stopped using it for two reasons:

1. It can be really slow to update new messages.

2. Using it with a password is too cumbersome.