4 ms·

Why can't they have a chat room w/o record keeping? Why can't I? Phone call w/o recording, In person w/o recording, why can't there be a chat room w/o recordin

Why can't they have a chat room w/o record keeping? Why can't I? Phone call w/o recording, In person w/o recording, why can't there be a chat room w/o recording? It seems absurd you wouldn't be allowed to do this because it's a "different medium". The flip side would be you must have a voice recording device on you at all times, 100%. Or, if I write a note in disappearing ink, it's illegal. It's not destruction of evidence when the medium itself is not setup for retention. I'm not trying to defend Google vs Epic vs US - it just feels like we're willing to shoot ourselves in the foot w/ specific freedoms just to fight them.

kevingadd 4y ago
"Why can't they have a chat room w/o record keeping? Why can't I?" It turns out when a company is big enough to generate billions in revenue yearly or has tens of thousands of employees, the laws governing it are different from the laws governing an individual! This may be difficult to reason about since Corporations Are People(tm) but we apply special rules to them because they have more power than a real person. More seriously, one good reason to require reasonable record retention in big companies, is that if multiple employees at a company collude, they can do irreparable harm to others in a way that a single individual cannot. Also note that in some cases as an individual you could also be compelled to retain records, like if you're under a subpoena, afaik.
- irjustin 4y ago
  > More seriously, one good reason to require reasonable record retention in big companies, is that if multiple employees at a company collude, they can do irreparable harm to others in a way that a single individual cannot. This doesn't really address my concern. Why is it different to have a phone call or sitting in a meeting room, or a zoom meeting (with no recording) and doing the same thing vs doing it in chat that does not record? Why is using snapchat as a company consider "evasive" and is punishable? We're saying our freedom to have an unrecordable chat is worth giving up. A really similar fight is the encryption backdoors for chat.

kevingadd 4y ago

"Why can't they have a chat room w/o record keeping? Why can't I?" It turns out when a company is big enough to generate billions in revenue yearly or has tens of thousands of employees, the laws governing it are different from the laws governing an individual! This may be difficult to reason about since Corporations Are People(tm) but we apply special rules to them because they have more power than a real person. More seriously, one good reason to require reasonable record retention in big companies, is that if multiple employees at a company collude, they can do irreparable harm to others in a way that a single individual cannot. Also note that in some cases as an individual you could also be compelled to retain records, like if you're under a subpoena, afaik.

irjustin 4y ago
> More seriously, one good reason to require reasonable record retention in big companies, is that if multiple employees at a company collude, they can do irreparable harm to others in a way that a single individual cannot. This doesn't really address my concern. Why is it different to have a phone call or sitting in a meeting room, or a zoom meeting (with no recording) and doing the same thing vs doing it in chat that does not record? Why is using snapchat as a company consider "evasive" and is punishable? We're saying our freedom to have an unrecordable chat is worth giving up. A really similar fight is the encryption backdoors for chat.