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> no such thing as going off the record Hard agree. I have personal bias in this case, but it’s crazy to me that sentiment on off the record chat in these thre

> no such thing as going off the record Hard agree. I have personal bias in this case, but it’s crazy to me that sentiment on off the record chat in these threads has been so heavily weighted towards normalizing the idea that everything should be recorded. I would be horrified if certain of my Slack DMs end up in discovery at my current job. I have to admit that sometimes I just need to blow off some steam to my teammate who sits two states over, and we communicate on Slack or Zoom, both of which are automatically recorded and preserved for at least a short time. Bob in procurement is not a literal gnome-fucking-shit-smear-artist but sometimes I do feel that way. My barber doesn’t know Bob but my teammate sat in the same meeting where we got a raw deal so we bond over the experience by saying stupid things in a Slack DM conversation. Under the developing regime this kind of casual talk on company systems is a risk for both myself and my employer if it ends up getting keyword matched during discovery. Not sure where a reasonable line is but it does seem like the grey area needs urgent attention before tech turns into finance.

whatshisface 3y ago
That's not a developing regime, it's been the norm since email.
- eep_social 3y ago
  But we are talking about messaging which has greatly displaced face to face conversation while email is flat or shrinking over the same time period.
  - nobody9999 3y ago
    >But we are talking about messaging which has greatly displaced face to face conversation while email is flat or shrinking over the same time period. That's irrelevant, IMHO. If an exchange is recorded, then it's fair game for legal discovery. I'll give you some (modified[0]) 25+ year-old advice that's just as relevant today to messaging/collaboration apps as it was to email: If you wouldn't want to see it on the front page of the NYT/WaPo/FoxNews/HN/Reddit/Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/tiktok/BBC/Deutsche Welle/YouTube/etc., then don't put it in any recorded form. And that goes triple for anything shared on platforms you don't own and physically control -- especially those owned/controlled by your employer. You might just as well just wear a GoPro 24/7 and livestream the feed everywhere. I'd add that in a professional setting, anything that might even be tangentially related might well be subject to discovery in the event of a lawsuit. Don't like it? Get the laws changed. And good luck with that. You're gonna need it. [0] The original advice referenced "local newspapers" and email, but since the former are mostly gone and (at least you claim it's so) "email is flat or shrinking", I thought I'd update it for you. Edit: Fixed typo.
    - eep_social 3y ago
      > If you wouldn't want to see it on the front page of the NYT/WaPo/FoxNews/HN/Reddit/Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/tiktok/BBC/Deutsche Welle/YouTube/etc., then don't put it in any recorded form. Indeed, and 25 years ago the balance of communication was significantly less recorded, was the point of the story.
      - nobody9999 3y ago
        >Indeed, and 25 years ago the balance of communication was significantly less recorded, was the point of the story. You're absolutely correct. And for those of us who care about our privacy, more's the pity. :(
- gwd 3y ago
  Pretty sure it's been the case since long before then. If you read Jane Austen novels, it's pretty clear that w/in London it was possible to send notes back and forth with only a 1-2 hour latency, sometimes less. Or consider the following quote from That Hideous Strength, written and set in the mid 1940s; the "Bill" in question has recently been murdered: --- "There's a letter you wrote," said the Fairy. "What letter?" "A letter to Mr. Pelham, of your own College, dated six weeks ago, in which you say, 'I wish Bill the Blizzard could be moved to a better world.'" Like a sharp physical pain the memory of that scribbled note came to Mark. It was the sort of silly jocularity one used in the Progressive Element -- the kind of thing that might be said dozens of times a day in Bracton about an opponent or even about a bore. --- If that scene was written now, the message in question would certainly have been a text. Email is certainly much more convenient than snail-mail or inter-departmental memos, but people have been writing short, quick notes to each other for millennia. NB a few minor edits.
rokkitmensch 3y ago
Did you miss the briefing in kindergarten where the rest of us were shocked, shocked I tell you (!) to learn that every bit transmitted on a corporate network or from a corporate device will be used against you at the slightest provocation?
pyrale 3y ago
> Ggome-fucking-shit-smear-artist [...] if it ends up getting keyword matched during discovery I'm forced to point out that, maybe, working at a company smuggling erotic gnome depictions should be avoided in your specific case.

whatshisface 3y ago

That's not a developing regime, it's been the norm since email.

eep_social 3y ago
But we are talking about messaging which has greatly displaced face to face conversation while email is flat or shrinking over the same time period.
- nobody9999 3y ago
  >But we are talking about messaging which has greatly displaced face to face conversation while email is flat or shrinking over the same time period. That's irrelevant, IMHO. If an exchange is recorded, then it's fair game for legal discovery. I'll give you some (modified[0]) 25+ year-old advice that's just as relevant today to messaging/collaboration apps as it was to email: If you wouldn't want to see it on the front page of the NYT/WaPo/FoxNews/HN/Reddit/Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/tiktok/BBC/Deutsche Welle/YouTube/etc., then don't put it in any recorded form. And that goes triple for anything shared on platforms you don't own and physically control -- especially those owned/controlled by your employer. You might just as well just wear a GoPro 24/7 and livestream the feed everywhere. I'd add that in a professional setting, anything that might even be tangentially related might well be subject to discovery in the event of a lawsuit. Don't like it? Get the laws changed. And good luck with that. You're gonna need it. [0] The original advice referenced "local newspapers" and email, but since the former are mostly gone and (at least you claim it's so) "email is flat or shrinking", I thought I'd update it for you. Edit: Fixed typo.
  - eep_social 3y ago
    > If you wouldn't want to see it on the front page of the NYT/WaPo/FoxNews/HN/Reddit/Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/tiktok/BBC/Deutsche Welle/YouTube/etc., then don't put it in any recorded form. Indeed, and 25 years ago the balance of communication was significantly less recorded, was the point of the story.
    - nobody9999 3y ago
      >Indeed, and 25 years ago the balance of communication was significantly less recorded, was the point of the story. You're absolutely correct. And for those of us who care about our privacy, more's the pity. :(
gwd 3y ago
Pretty sure it's been the case since long before then. If you read Jane Austen novels, it's pretty clear that w/in London it was possible to send notes back and forth with only a 1-2 hour latency, sometimes less. Or consider the following quote from That Hideous Strength, written and set in the mid 1940s; the "Bill" in question has recently been murdered: --- "There's a letter you wrote," said the Fairy. "What letter?" "A letter to Mr. Pelham, of your own College, dated six weeks ago, in which you say, 'I wish Bill the Blizzard could be moved to a better world.'" Like a sharp physical pain the memory of that scribbled note came to Mark. It was the sort of silly jocularity one used in the Progressive Element -- the kind of thing that might be said dozens of times a day in Bracton about an opponent or even about a bore. --- If that scene was written now, the message in question would certainly have been a text. Email is certainly much more convenient than snail-mail or inter-departmental memos, but people have been writing short, quick notes to each other for millennia. NB a few minor edits.

rokkitmensch 3y ago

Did you miss the briefing in kindergarten where the rest of us were shocked, shocked I tell you (!) to learn that every bit transmitted on a corporate network or from a corporate device will be used against you at the slightest provocation?

pyrale 3y ago

> Ggome-fucking-shit-smear-artist [...] if it ends up getting keyword matched during discovery I'm forced to point out that, maybe, working at a company smuggling erotic gnome depictions should be avoided in your specific case.