8 ms·

If two people want to have a private conversation, they'll just find another means by which to do it. In the long run, abusing your privileged access to convers

If two people want to have a private conversation, they'll just find another means by which to do it. In the long run, abusing your privileged access to conversations intended to be private (however justified you may consider it to be) will just breed mistrust among employees. I would quit a job that treated me as a child which must be supervised in such a manner.

Spooky23 9y ago
You had better work for yourself then. EDiscovery is a thing, and employee preference will never trump a judge’s order.
JshWright 9y ago
>I would quit a job that treated me as a child which must be supervised in such a manner. Are you replying to the right comment? From the example given, it seems no action was taken until the parties involved proved such supervision was necessary.
protomyth 9y ago
> abusing your privileged access to conversations intended to be private (however justified you may consider it to be) will just breed mistrust among employees Abusing your privileged access?!? You do realize some of us are required to access those communications for a variety of reasons especially because a threat is happening? Also, I don't get a choice when the lawyer shows up and says we need to look at X's account. > I would quit a job that treated me as a child which must be supervised in such a manner. Well, that might save me a bit of trouble, but at the point I am asked to look at your account, I get the feeling you are on your way out anyway or will shortly have a lawyer or the police contacting you. The communication systems you use as an employee are not yours.
- netcraft 9y ago
  > because a threat is happening because an "alleged" threat is happening. Still, cause for gathering evidence, sure. > I don't get a choice when the lawyer shows up and says we need to look at X's account And now with this, they'll use a different communication method that you dont have access to and now youre back to square one. The best you can hope for is that theyre ignorant of these changes so you can catch them. > ... at the point I am asked to look at your account, I get the feeling you are on your way out anyway or will shortly have a lawyer or the police contacting you. ah, guilty until proven innocent > The communication systems you use as an employee are not yours. This is true, and I dont think slack is necessarily wrong in providing this access - but you shouldnt assume that communications that the user doesnt want the company to be privy to is necessarily malicious or illegal. If you are having legitimate complaints about your job and you want to vent or validate your concerns before proceeding, you might want to have a private conversation with a coworker - and you might legitimately be afraid that your unfiltered, undiplomatic private conversation might be taken out of context or retaliated against.
  - cmorgan31 9y ago
    It would make a lot more sense to take your unfiltered and undiplomatic private conversation to a nearby private establishment. If you are remote and can not do this I would simply use a not supplied by work phone. This is for your protection and whoever you bring along to vent. There have been at least two occurrences in my career which have forced my hand on employee communication and in both cases, a blanket refusal was not an option. If you don't want to say something publically don't assume anything your company pays for is private until our society changes its views on where the expectation of privacy exists.
  - thecosas 9y ago
    You made many good points, but I'll take issue with this one: > If you are having legitimate complaints about your job and you want to vent or validate your concerns before proceeding, you might want to have a private conversation with a coworker - and you might legitimately be afraid that your unfiltered, undiplomatic private conversation might be taken out of context or retaliated against. If you were retaliated against for your legitimate complaints in private Slack conversations (via firing, harassment, etc) then the records could be subpoenaed for you to prove WHY you were being targeted. It works both ways.
  - protomyth 9y ago
    The company isn't a court "alleged" is plenty enough for the company to look at the communication system it pays for to figure out what is going on. It has a communication system to communicate about business. > And now with this, they'll use a different communication method that you dont have access to and now youre back to square one. The best you can hope for is that theyre ignorant of these changes so you can catch them. Good, then its security and HR's problem. We tell everyone we own the communications systems (its even in the employee handbook). > ah, guilty until proven innocent Yep. Welcome to the corporate environment in the US. Frankly, if they think you used the company e-mail / Slack to do your activity then I don't think we are dealing with Moriarty here. > but you shouldnt assume that communications that the user doesnt want the company to be privy to is necessarily malicious or illegal. Then use your own non-company communication system (e.g. text, home e-mail) or go to lunch - how hard is that?
- Vektorweg 9y ago
  threats are hardly a good reason for mass surveillance.
  - dralley 9y ago
    It's not mass surveillance. It's compliance with the rules governing preservation of records for legal discovery.
    - Vektorweg 9y ago
      These are preserved by the participants of the conversation. A third party shouldn't have any hold on it.
- peterkelly 9y ago
  > The communication systems you use as an employee are not yours. Yes they are. I work as a contractor, remotely, using my own personal equipment, my own personal email account, and either my home internet connection or that of whatever coffee shop or co-working space I happen to be in on any given day. My clients are all located in other cities and countries and lack a physical presence where I live. I've never had any complaints about these arrangements (yes, I do realise I'm very fortunate to be able to work in this manner). I also work for multiple clients. Allowing one of them access to all my work-related communications would involve violating the confidentiality agreements I've signed with the others. Should I be required to divulge the trade secrets or intellectual property of one client to another to satisfy a corporate IT policy? And if I have a personal conversation with someone, which client(s) should I share that with?
  - protomyth 9y ago
    Should I be required to divulge the trade secrets or intellectual property of one client to another to satisfy a corporate IT policy? And if I have a personal conversation with someone, which client(s) should I share that with? Contractors are always in an odd position, but its pretty logical and a lot easier these days. If I was a contractor again, I would probably put my communications and project files on VM of their own[1]. You should have a procedure to clearly separate your time, communications, and work product for each client. If you are using your company e-mail then separation is well understood by lawyers. I would make sure to have separate Slack accounts per client. 1) This assumes I am not assigned a PC and accounts by the employer because its a staffing position instead of a work product arrangement.
- pyjammas 9y ago
  While I sympathize with that concern, I do really believe that actively preventing employees from employing natural means of 'private' conversation is squarely in the 'panopticon' sphere of employment. I find it difficult enough that people can be 'owned' for full work weeks as far as their physical presence, but I suppose I'm pragmatic enough to accept that this is the status quo. But the thought that they are actively monitored during this time, preventing them from even private venting and communicating in a way that is not monitored, is much harder to accept. We're talking about people here. While I personally have never understood how anyone can accept being under the thumb of an employer for such long periods of time out of their productive years, I've learned to see that this is bearable within the relative freedom that this usually entails (complaining about x colleague, grumbling about the boss with the support staff, after-work beers with a manager who grumbles about his manager), I truly cannot understand how one can have a dignified life as an individual when all your forms of communication are being watched by your overlords.
  - pyjammas 9y ago
    I can't seem to edit my comment, so I'll comment on my comment instead: To put this in a broader perspective, because I'm tired of the comment-sniping that doesn't seem to lead anywhere: I find myself already a bit uneasy with the whole idea that an individual can write away their freedom to spend their daylight hours tethered to an employer to the point where their every (productive, sunlit) hour needs to be accounted for. At the same time I can understand that this is how things are, and we are trying to be human within that sphere, and perhaps for many this is not so bad as long as they can live in a microcosm of society within this world. That includes gossip, complaining, semi-secret conversation, and even romance (while that's often not smart). I'd really prefer to engage with those who employ and get to dictate the behavior of said employees, instead of comment-sniping where we never bridge that 'gap' between me, a self-employed, individual (because I reject all that), and someone who actively is 'in charge' of people who submit to it. I do realize that my wording in itself is not neutral, but I hope acknowledging that helps bridge that gap a bit at least. And I have counted those 'in charge' as friends in the past, plus I know I'm not a typical 'person', so I'm open to learning to understand this whole thing.
  - 9y ago
eli 9y ago
If you're required to be on Slack to do your job, then your employer is obligated to make sure going on Slack is safe and free from harassment. You can't just sign off or block other employees.
tedivm 9y ago
I hate to tell you this but if you would quit a job for this reason you probably can't work in the US. The US has laws about corporate compliance, and it has requirements for things like dealing with sexual harassment. There is no such thing as a "private conversation" that takes place over a corporate network. For example, in the US sexual harassment is taken seriously. If a company gets a complaint of sexual harassment on Slack they are legally obligated to look into it, and if they refuse to the individual managers could personally be held liable for it. This includes situations where the person being harassed isn't directly in the conversation- the above example of harassment over slack could have evidence of coordination in a different private channel than the ones the harassment target is in.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  > There is no such thing as a "private conversation" that takes place over a corporate network. It's a tech issue, cultural issue, and a legal issue, but it's harmful that we seem to be forgetting the wisdom of discretion as life become more digitized. If the law or culture says "no expectation of discretion", they're just wrong and likely hypocritical. It's healthy, normal, and appropriate to tell specific things to specific people. If we're worried about abuse, there are other solutions to those problems, like letting the harassed share the conversation later, which they can already do, with screenshots if nothing else.
  - tedivm 9y ago
    Discretion still has its place, but that's different from privacy and compliance. Most admins aren't going to spend all day reading other people's conversations, and good companies have explicit policies as to when they will do so. The thing we're discussing here isn't whether companies should spy on everything their employees do- it's about what happens when an issue does occur where they do need to look into things. I would not work for a company where I thought my managers were looking over my shoulder at every single thing I was doing, but at the same time I would not refuse to work for a company just because they could look into my conversations if I was accused of wrongdoing. People are also ignoring another aspect of this- if a company does get sued by an outside party they have to make internal data available through discovery. These laws about corporate compliance also exist to make it so corporations can be held accountable.
Cacti 9y ago
Hey, don't let the door hit yourself on the way out. There are very valid legal reasons for a business to need at least the option for discovery, e.g., legal suits, fraud, violation of trade secret or export controls, serious employee harassment, etc. This goes for chat just as much as email or anything else electronic. If you think this is "treating you like a child", well, perhaps you are the child.
hvass 9y ago
Hope this doesn't sound too harsh but your reply comes off as extremely self-centered. What about looking—at the very least—at it from a legal perspective? It's not like lawsuits and aspects related to discovery haven't been in the tech news lately.
- rimliu 9y ago
  It’s sad how many bullshit decisions were buldozed by “because legal” excuse. By that logic eveything should be recorded everywhere — including bathrooms.
prewett 9y ago
So what would your solution to the OP's problem be? If harassment is happening, I expect the company has some legal requirement to act. I also expect that you support the company making a safe workplace. How does the company do that if it cannot verify that something is actually going on? Just blindly believe the accuser without confirming if it's true? Just disbelieve the accuser? Tell them to work it out themselves?
- vijayagrawal18 9y ago
  Ask the harassed person to show their slack to start with.
  - nstoe098ntaoe 9y ago
    And if the harassment itself wasn't over Slack, but just the discussions of it between 2 harassers, then what?
stale2002 9y ago
Well, that's only if the person actually knows that the conversation isn't private. I would also like to point out that the person you were responding was talking about interns, so were arguably 'actually' children.
balls187 9y ago
> I would quit a job that treated me as a child which must be supervised in such a manner. Agreed this can lead to abuse. But investigating employee behavior while using employer provided communication platforms doesn't immediately fall under abuse. No more than police subpoenaing phone records during a criminal investigation would.
probinso 9y ago
The company should not provide funding for a channel used to harass people. You're being a shit if you trivialize harassment in the workplace, but you are being an idiot if you are paying for the tools used to hide it.
dspillett 9y ago
> If two people want to have a private conversation You response is based on a false fact: that anything you use official company communication channels for should be considered private. HR functions can and will access such communication to investigate complaints about behaviour and similar. Compliance and legal functions can and will access such communication to investigate complaints relevant to them. They can, will, and often must provide access to such communication to relevant external bodies (legal authorities, regulators) under some circumstances too. Heck, in some regulated environments compliance functions are required not just to view your communications for specific reasons but to actively monitor them for certain activity (if they fail to do so they could be liable for punishments for a due diligence failing). For instance our email is monitored to block distribution of client data, accidental or otherwise. If you want a private conversation, use a truly private channel not an employer provided/related one. > they'll just find another means by which to do it The fact that people will find away around rules, restrictions, and monitoring, is not a good reason for not implementing such rules, restrictions, and monitoring in the first place. If the private conversation is in no way a problem then, well, there isn't a problem. If it is something that would cause the participants trouble if performed over an official channel then when/if the matter does come to light it shows malice of forethought and planning (i.e. that the participants knew they were in the wrong and took specific action to hide their behaviour rather than correct it). > I would quit a job In many (most?) industries you would not even get a job without explicitly agreeing to the fact that your communications using employer provided/related services can be accessed by some functions of the organisation and distributed to external authorities, so you would not be in a position to need to quit.
- mijamo 9y ago
  That is only according to some law systems though. It does not work like that at all in many European countries. For instance in France the employer cannot read any private conversation (mail/message) of the employee, even when using work email. And no internal rule can change that (it is a criminal offense). If the employer suspects a leak of information by the employee, they can read the message in presence of the employee and a union member, and only in those circumstances.
Skunkleton 9y ago
> If two people want to have a private conversation, Emphasis is mine. If one person can have a private conversation with an unwilling participant, that is entirely different. I have worked in places with heavy logging requirements, and for sure we created ways to have private conversations. The point is that everyone in these private chats was a willing participant, and could leave if they wanted.
hennsen 9y ago
Sure, but then the communication doesn’t happen in the space where your boss is partially responsible for what's happening there. It’s very simple: use your employers tools and networks only for business stuff, do personal stuff unrelated to work in your own networks and software... Besides that, just in case you didn’t notice, the original poster did not say hes reading employee private messages for fun, but only to act as law prescribes.
staticassertion 9y ago
No one is watching you or treating you like a child. This is important for security and legal reasons. Insider threat is a serious, real world problem - consider employee harassment, exfiltrating data, sharing secret information, a compromised slack account DM'ing people malware, etc. No one wants to read your messages, and it's probably a small set of people that even can.
misakwa 9y ago
I think one of the side-effects of this is that there are other slack teams created to help keep communications among colleagues private-ish. This leads to cliques and tends to isolate new employees who may not yet be in those "teams".
evrydayhustling 9y ago
Nobody can or should stop you from finding private spaces to talk to fellow employees -- but you have to provide the space yourself. Slack is part of the work environment being set up for you by your employer, so they're responsible for being able to make sure that it's free of harassment and illegal activity.
buttcoinslol 9y ago
>I would quit a job that treated me as a child which must be supervised in such a manner. Did you miss the part where the interns were acting like children? >A few years back, a group of interns started privately harassing other interns via Slack. We're all proud of you for making this top comment thread about your own ethical stand, let's give peterkelly a big round of applause!!
plussed_reader 9y ago
Where are you getting abuse of access from the prior comment?
s73v3r_ 9y ago
I mean, if you're using that capability to harass other employees, as the interns in the story were, then yeah, you deserve to be treated as a child, because you basically are.
urda 9y ago
> would quit a job that treated me as a child which must be supervised in such a manner. Then you should be prepared to be permanently out of work. You are NOT entitled to private communications on company-sanctioned channels. Full Stop. End of story. This isn't an issue of "trust" or having faith in your employees, but this is how business is done.

Spooky23 9y ago

You had better work for yourself then. EDiscovery is a thing, and employee preference will never trump a judge’s order.

JshWright 9y ago

>I would quit a job that treated me as a child which must be supervised in such a manner. Are you replying to the right comment? From the example given, it seems no action was taken until the parties involved proved such supervision was necessary.

protomyth 9y ago

> abusing your privileged access to conversations intended to be private (however justified you may consider it to be) will just breed mistrust among employees Abusing your privileged access?!? You do realize some of us are required to access those communications for a variety of reasons especially because a threat is happening? Also, I don't get a choice when the lawyer shows up and says we need to look at X's account. > I would quit a job that treated me as a child which must be supervised in such a manner. Well, that might save me a bit of trouble, but at the point I am asked to look at your account, I get the feeling you are on your way out anyway or will shortly have a lawyer or the police contacting you. The communication systems you use as an employee are not yours.

netcraft 9y ago
> because a threat is happening because an "alleged" threat is happening. Still, cause for gathering evidence, sure. > I don't get a choice when the lawyer shows up and says we need to look at X's account And now with this, they'll use a different communication method that you dont have access to and now youre back to square one. The best you can hope for is that theyre ignorant of these changes so you can catch them. > ... at the point I am asked to look at your account, I get the feeling you are on your way out anyway or will shortly have a lawyer or the police contacting you. ah, guilty until proven innocent > The communication systems you use as an employee are not yours. This is true, and I dont think slack is necessarily wrong in providing this access - but you shouldnt assume that communications that the user doesnt want the company to be privy to is necessarily malicious or illegal. If you are having legitimate complaints about your job and you want to vent or validate your concerns before proceeding, you might want to have a private conversation with a coworker - and you might legitimately be afraid that your unfiltered, undiplomatic private conversation might be taken out of context or retaliated against.
- cmorgan31 9y ago
  It would make a lot more sense to take your unfiltered and undiplomatic private conversation to a nearby private establishment. If you are remote and can not do this I would simply use a not supplied by work phone. This is for your protection and whoever you bring along to vent. There have been at least two occurrences in my career which have forced my hand on employee communication and in both cases, a blanket refusal was not an option. If you don't want to say something publically don't assume anything your company pays for is private until our society changes its views on where the expectation of privacy exists.
- thecosas 9y ago
  You made many good points, but I'll take issue with this one: > If you are having legitimate complaints about your job and you want to vent or validate your concerns before proceeding, you might want to have a private conversation with a coworker - and you might legitimately be afraid that your unfiltered, undiplomatic private conversation might be taken out of context or retaliated against. If you were retaliated against for your legitimate complaints in private Slack conversations (via firing, harassment, etc) then the records could be subpoenaed for you to prove WHY you were being targeted. It works both ways.
- protomyth 9y ago
  The company isn't a court "alleged" is plenty enough for the company to look at the communication system it pays for to figure out what is going on. It has a communication system to communicate about business. > And now with this, they'll use a different communication method that you dont have access to and now youre back to square one. The best you can hope for is that theyre ignorant of these changes so you can catch them. Good, then its security and HR's problem. We tell everyone we own the communications systems (its even in the employee handbook). > ah, guilty until proven innocent Yep. Welcome to the corporate environment in the US. Frankly, if they think you used the company e-mail / Slack to do your activity then I don't think we are dealing with Moriarty here. > but you shouldnt assume that communications that the user doesnt want the company to be privy to is necessarily malicious or illegal. Then use your own non-company communication system (e.g. text, home e-mail) or go to lunch - how hard is that?
Vektorweg 9y ago
threats are hardly a good reason for mass surveillance.
- dralley 9y ago
  It's not mass surveillance. It's compliance with the rules governing preservation of records for legal discovery.
  - Vektorweg 9y ago
    These are preserved by the participants of the conversation. A third party shouldn't have any hold on it.
peterkelly 9y ago
> The communication systems you use as an employee are not yours. Yes they are. I work as a contractor, remotely, using my own personal equipment, my own personal email account, and either my home internet connection or that of whatever coffee shop or co-working space I happen to be in on any given day. My clients are all located in other cities and countries and lack a physical presence where I live. I've never had any complaints about these arrangements (yes, I do realise I'm very fortunate to be able to work in this manner). I also work for multiple clients. Allowing one of them access to all my work-related communications would involve violating the confidentiality agreements I've signed with the others. Should I be required to divulge the trade secrets or intellectual property of one client to another to satisfy a corporate IT policy? And if I have a personal conversation with someone, which client(s) should I share that with?
- protomyth 9y ago
  Should I be required to divulge the trade secrets or intellectual property of one client to another to satisfy a corporate IT policy? And if I have a personal conversation with someone, which client(s) should I share that with? Contractors are always in an odd position, but its pretty logical and a lot easier these days. If I was a contractor again, I would probably put my communications and project files on VM of their own[1]. You should have a procedure to clearly separate your time, communications, and work product for each client. If you are using your company e-mail then separation is well understood by lawyers. I would make sure to have separate Slack accounts per client. 1) This assumes I am not assigned a PC and accounts by the employer because its a staffing position instead of a work product arrangement.
pyjammas 9y ago
While I sympathize with that concern, I do really believe that actively preventing employees from employing natural means of 'private' conversation is squarely in the 'panopticon' sphere of employment. I find it difficult enough that people can be 'owned' for full work weeks as far as their physical presence, but I suppose I'm pragmatic enough to accept that this is the status quo. But the thought that they are actively monitored during this time, preventing them from even private venting and communicating in a way that is not monitored, is much harder to accept. We're talking about people here. While I personally have never understood how anyone can accept being under the thumb of an employer for such long periods of time out of their productive years, I've learned to see that this is bearable within the relative freedom that this usually entails (complaining about x colleague, grumbling about the boss with the support staff, after-work beers with a manager who grumbles about his manager), I truly cannot understand how one can have a dignified life as an individual when all your forms of communication are being watched by your overlords.
- pyjammas 9y ago
  I can't seem to edit my comment, so I'll comment on my comment instead: To put this in a broader perspective, because I'm tired of the comment-sniping that doesn't seem to lead anywhere: I find myself already a bit uneasy with the whole idea that an individual can write away their freedom to spend their daylight hours tethered to an employer to the point where their every (productive, sunlit) hour needs to be accounted for. At the same time I can understand that this is how things are, and we are trying to be human within that sphere, and perhaps for many this is not so bad as long as they can live in a microcosm of society within this world. That includes gossip, complaining, semi-secret conversation, and even romance (while that's often not smart). I'd really prefer to engage with those who employ and get to dictate the behavior of said employees, instead of comment-sniping where we never bridge that 'gap' between me, a self-employed, individual (because I reject all that), and someone who actively is 'in charge' of people who submit to it. I do realize that my wording in itself is not neutral, but I hope acknowledging that helps bridge that gap a bit at least. And I have counted those 'in charge' as friends in the past, plus I know I'm not a typical 'person', so I'm open to learning to understand this whole thing.
- 9y ago

eli 9y ago

If you're required to be on Slack to do your job, then your employer is obligated to make sure going on Slack is safe and free from harassment. You can't just sign off or block other employees.

tedivm 9y ago

I hate to tell you this but if you would quit a job for this reason you probably can't work in the US. The US has laws about corporate compliance, and it has requirements for things like dealing with sexual harassment. There is no such thing as a "private conversation" that takes place over a corporate network. For example, in the US sexual harassment is taken seriously. If a company gets a complaint of sexual harassment on Slack they are legally obligated to look into it, and if they refuse to the individual managers could personally be held liable for it. This includes situations where the person being harassed isn't directly in the conversation- the above example of harassment over slack could have evidence of coordination in a different private channel than the ones the harassment target is in.

humanrebar 9y ago
> There is no such thing as a "private conversation" that takes place over a corporate network. It's a tech issue, cultural issue, and a legal issue, but it's harmful that we seem to be forgetting the wisdom of discretion as life become more digitized. If the law or culture says "no expectation of discretion", they're just wrong and likely hypocritical. It's healthy, normal, and appropriate to tell specific things to specific people. If we're worried about abuse, there are other solutions to those problems, like letting the harassed share the conversation later, which they can already do, with screenshots if nothing else.
- tedivm 9y ago
  Discretion still has its place, but that's different from privacy and compliance. Most admins aren't going to spend all day reading other people's conversations, and good companies have explicit policies as to when they will do so. The thing we're discussing here isn't whether companies should spy on everything their employees do- it's about what happens when an issue does occur where they do need to look into things. I would not work for a company where I thought my managers were looking over my shoulder at every single thing I was doing, but at the same time I would not refuse to work for a company just because they could look into my conversations if I was accused of wrongdoing. People are also ignoring another aspect of this- if a company does get sued by an outside party they have to make internal data available through discovery. These laws about corporate compliance also exist to make it so corporations can be held accountable.

Cacti 9y ago

Hey, don't let the door hit yourself on the way out. There are very valid legal reasons for a business to need at least the option for discovery, e.g., legal suits, fraud, violation of trade secret or export controls, serious employee harassment, etc. This goes for chat just as much as email or anything else electronic. If you think this is "treating you like a child", well, perhaps you are the child.

hvass 9y ago

Hope this doesn't sound too harsh but your reply comes off as extremely self-centered. What about looking—at the very least—at it from a legal perspective? It's not like lawsuits and aspects related to discovery haven't been in the tech news lately.

rimliu 9y ago
It’s sad how many bullshit decisions were buldozed by “because legal” excuse. By that logic eveything should be recorded everywhere — including bathrooms.

prewett 9y ago

So what would your solution to the OP's problem be? If harassment is happening, I expect the company has some legal requirement to act. I also expect that you support the company making a safe workplace. How does the company do that if it cannot verify that something is actually going on? Just blindly believe the accuser without confirming if it's true? Just disbelieve the accuser? Tell them to work it out themselves?

vijayagrawal18 9y ago
Ask the harassed person to show their slack to start with.
- nstoe098ntaoe 9y ago
  And if the harassment itself wasn't over Slack, but just the discussions of it between 2 harassers, then what?

stale2002 9y ago

Well, that's only if the person actually knows that the conversation isn't private. I would also like to point out that the person you were responding was talking about interns, so were arguably 'actually' children.

balls187 9y ago

> I would quit a job that treated me as a child which must be supervised in such a manner. Agreed this can lead to abuse. But investigating employee behavior while using employer provided communication platforms doesn't immediately fall under abuse. No more than police subpoenaing phone records during a criminal investigation would.

probinso 9y ago

The company should not provide funding for a channel used to harass people. You're being a shit if you trivialize harassment in the workplace, but you are being an idiot if you are paying for the tools used to hide it.

dspillett 9y ago

> If two people want to have a private conversation You response is based on a false fact: that anything you use official company communication channels for should be considered private. HR functions can and will access such communication to investigate complaints about behaviour and similar. Compliance and legal functions can and will access such communication to investigate complaints relevant to them. They can, will, and often must provide access to such communication to relevant external bodies (legal authorities, regulators) under some circumstances too. Heck, in some regulated environments compliance functions are required not just to view your communications for specific reasons but to actively monitor them for certain activity (if they fail to do so they could be liable for punishments for a due diligence failing). For instance our email is monitored to block distribution of client data, accidental or otherwise. If you want a private conversation, use a truly private channel not an employer provided/related one. > they'll just find another means by which to do it The fact that people will find away around rules, restrictions, and monitoring, is not a good reason for not implementing such rules, restrictions, and monitoring in the first place. If the private conversation is in no way a problem then, well, there isn't a problem. If it is something that would cause the participants trouble if performed over an official channel then when/if the matter does come to light it shows malice of forethought and planning (i.e. that the participants knew they were in the wrong and took specific action to hide their behaviour rather than correct it). > I would quit a job In many (most?) industries you would not even get a job without explicitly agreeing to the fact that your communications using employer provided/related services can be accessed by some functions of the organisation and distributed to external authorities, so you would not be in a position to need to quit.

mijamo 9y ago
That is only according to some law systems though. It does not work like that at all in many European countries. For instance in France the employer cannot read any private conversation (mail/message) of the employee, even when using work email. And no internal rule can change that (it is a criminal offense). If the employer suspects a leak of information by the employee, they can read the message in presence of the employee and a union member, and only in those circumstances.

Skunkleton 9y ago

> If two people want to have a private conversation, Emphasis is mine. If one person can have a private conversation with an unwilling participant, that is entirely different. I have worked in places with heavy logging requirements, and for sure we created ways to have private conversations. The point is that everyone in these private chats was a willing participant, and could leave if they wanted.

hennsen 9y ago

Sure, but then the communication doesn’t happen in the space where your boss is partially responsible for what's happening there. It’s very simple: use your employers tools and networks only for business stuff, do personal stuff unrelated to work in your own networks and software... Besides that, just in case you didn’t notice, the original poster did not say hes reading employee private messages for fun, but only to act as law prescribes.

staticassertion 9y ago

No one is watching you or treating you like a child. This is important for security and legal reasons. Insider threat is a serious, real world problem - consider employee harassment, exfiltrating data, sharing secret information, a compromised slack account DM'ing people malware, etc. No one wants to read your messages, and it's probably a small set of people that even can.

misakwa 9y ago

I think one of the side-effects of this is that there are other slack teams created to help keep communications among colleagues private-ish. This leads to cliques and tends to isolate new employees who may not yet be in those "teams".

evrydayhustling 9y ago

Nobody can or should stop you from finding private spaces to talk to fellow employees -- but you have to provide the space yourself. Slack is part of the work environment being set up for you by your employer, so they're responsible for being able to make sure that it's free of harassment and illegal activity.

buttcoinslol 9y ago

>I would quit a job that treated me as a child which must be supervised in such a manner. Did you miss the part where the interns were acting like children? >A few years back, a group of interns started privately harassing other interns via Slack. We're all proud of you for making this top comment thread about your own ethical stand, let's give peterkelly a big round of applause!!

plussed_reader 9y ago

Where are you getting abuse of access from the prior comment?

s73v3r_ 9y ago

I mean, if you're using that capability to harass other employees, as the interns in the story were, then yeah, you deserve to be treated as a child, because you basically are.

urda 9y ago

> would quit a job that treated me as a child which must be supervised in such a manner. Then you should be prepared to be permanently out of work. You are NOT entitled to private communications on company-sanctioned channels. Full Stop. End of story. This isn't an issue of "trust" or having faith in your employees, but this is how business is done.