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> I've never been a big fan of mandatory message retention It's the price of being publicly traded, which is born out of our lessons learned from the Enron sc

> I've never been a big fan of mandatory message retention It's the price of being publicly traded, which is born out of our lessons learned from the Enron scandal, and gave us incredibly simple SOX regulations, and decades of strange antipathy towards them. > it just seems like punishment for the literate. Are you suggesting that companies are eschewing written communication for verbal communication as a means of bypassing this legislation? And that it's unfair you have no similar bypass? That's a pretty morally relative take. > but if you don't know what the crime is, how can you be so sure? You've precisely described _why_ the coverup is seen as worse than the crime.

elevatedastalt 3y ago
OP is specifically comparing voice to text. So it has absolutely nothing to do with being publicly traded. In fact the FTC can investigate fully private companies too. Publicly traded or not, companies aren't expected to record all voice conversations done by their employees and retain those recordings for future court cases. That's the double-standard that OP is pointing out. There seems to be an expectation that text chat should be recorded and persisted and audio not. This is a vestige of an old era when text was for more "formal" or serious conversation and chat for informal. Today with IM-ing and remote work text can be as ephemeral as voice.
- ProfessorLayton 3y ago
  That’s because there is a double standard when it comes to speaking vs writing things down. When a boss tells you to do something dubious within an organization is completely different than when they write that same thing down in a traceable manner. If it’s not in writing everything devolves into your-word-vs-mine, and the top chain of command quickly washes its hands from any blame. As the saying goes: “Get it in writing”
  - elevatedastalt 3y ago
    Yes, but technology lets us have ephemeral conversations, which are meant to replicate the temporariness of verbal conversations. That's what the "disappearing" messages of Signal are. And that's what the FTC claim is about. It's okay for text intended to be permanent to be held to the standard of permanent text. But creating an expectation that text that is fundamentally intended to be ephemeral should be treated as permanent text does not sound reasonable.
    - salawat 3y ago
      The problem is that the ephemeralitt of a chat between two peers requires physical colocation. The regulations on message retention kicked in when we started leveraging networks to increase the distance across which these messages could propagate. The "crime" is not the chatting. It's using the wires to do it. The danger is the utilization of network infrastructure to facilitate criminal activity. Or at least that seems to be my view of things.
      - wcunning 3y ago
        But it also doesn't apply to voice calls or even multi-party meetings held over something like Teams despite the ability to record or even auto transcribe them.
        saulrh 3y ago
        I bet that it does apply to transcripts of meetings. This means, of course, that people with hearing or memory problems will be locked out of leadership because the company can't take the risk that accessibility tooling increases their exposure to discovery. Which is what makes me angriest about this double standard - text is a critical accessibility feature for many people.
        wcunning 3y ago
        I mean that you're not required to archive a transcript of every meeting if you weren't already planning on creating the transcript in the first place. Once it's created, agreed, I would expect it to become a business record akin to meeting minutes of board meetings.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    But chat isn’t that kind of writing so the theory goes. Let’s consider another hypothetical: if a deaf employee uses teletext to communicate, are they held to a different standard legally than a non-deaf employee? Or do you mean they should learn sign language to enjoy full privacy rights that everyone else has?
- Retric 3y ago
  Destroying evidence is already illegal, so it’s a consistent standard rather than a double standard. Essentially removing the question of whether someone should have considered something as potential evidence before destroying it.
  - elevatedastalt 3y ago
    _Destroying_ evidence is illegal, yes. _Not creating more incriminatory evidence_ is not illegal.
    - Retric 3y ago
      Not creating records can be illegal. Creating unnecessary and incriminating records comes down to your own incompetence.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
whaleofatw2022 3y ago
> and decades of strange antipathy towards them. Historically, my pain with SOX has primarily been related to: 1. Poorly written control procedures that hamstring process but nobody wants to fix them, since typically the biggest point is your process is reasonable, documented, and followed... changing it can be fine. 2. Having to fill out time sheets for my work and having to use a flowchart to know what to put in the Capex/Opex column for my time on a given task, so accounting can follow reporting practices.
dragonwriter 3y ago
> It’s the price of being publicly traded No, its not. Litigation holds apply to everyone, it is not just publicly-traded firms that get in trouble if they destroy evidence related to current or reasonably expected litigation (including, but not limited to, an enforcement agency investigation in which they have been notified to retain information for that purpose.)

elevatedastalt 3y ago

OP is specifically comparing voice to text. So it has absolutely nothing to do with being publicly traded. In fact the FTC can investigate fully private companies too. Publicly traded or not, companies aren't expected to record all voice conversations done by their employees and retain those recordings for future court cases. That's the double-standard that OP is pointing out. There seems to be an expectation that text chat should be recorded and persisted and audio not. This is a vestige of an old era when text was for more "formal" or serious conversation and chat for informal. Today with IM-ing and remote work text can be as ephemeral as voice.

ProfessorLayton 3y ago
That’s because there is a double standard when it comes to speaking vs writing things down. When a boss tells you to do something dubious within an organization is completely different than when they write that same thing down in a traceable manner. If it’s not in writing everything devolves into your-word-vs-mine, and the top chain of command quickly washes its hands from any blame. As the saying goes: “Get it in writing”
- elevatedastalt 3y ago
  Yes, but technology lets us have ephemeral conversations, which are meant to replicate the temporariness of verbal conversations. That's what the "disappearing" messages of Signal are. And that's what the FTC claim is about. It's okay for text intended to be permanent to be held to the standard of permanent text. But creating an expectation that text that is fundamentally intended to be ephemeral should be treated as permanent text does not sound reasonable.
  - salawat 3y ago
    The problem is that the ephemeralitt of a chat between two peers requires physical colocation. The regulations on message retention kicked in when we started leveraging networks to increase the distance across which these messages could propagate. The "crime" is not the chatting. It's using the wires to do it. The danger is the utilization of network infrastructure to facilitate criminal activity. Or at least that seems to be my view of things.
    - wcunning 3y ago
      But it also doesn't apply to voice calls or even multi-party meetings held over something like Teams despite the ability to record or even auto transcribe them.
      - saulrh 3y ago
        I bet that it does apply to transcripts of meetings. This means, of course, that people with hearing or memory problems will be locked out of leadership because the company can't take the risk that accessibility tooling increases their exposure to discovery. Which is what makes me angriest about this double standard - text is a critical accessibility feature for many people.
        wcunning 3y ago
        I mean that you're not required to archive a transcript of every meeting if you weren't already planning on creating the transcript in the first place. Once it's created, agreed, I would expect it to become a business record akin to meeting minutes of board meetings.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  But chat isn’t that kind of writing so the theory goes. Let’s consider another hypothetical: if a deaf employee uses teletext to communicate, are they held to a different standard legally than a non-deaf employee? Or do you mean they should learn sign language to enjoy full privacy rights that everyone else has?
Retric 3y ago
Destroying evidence is already illegal, so it’s a consistent standard rather than a double standard. Essentially removing the question of whether someone should have considered something as potential evidence before destroying it.
- elevatedastalt 3y ago
  _Destroying_ evidence is illegal, yes. _Not creating more incriminatory evidence_ is not illegal.
  - Retric 3y ago
    Not creating records can be illegal. Creating unnecessary and incriminating records comes down to your own incompetence.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

whaleofatw2022 3y ago

> and decades of strange antipathy towards them. Historically, my pain with SOX has primarily been related to: 1. Poorly written control procedures that hamstring process but nobody wants to fix them, since typically the biggest point is your process is reasonable, documented, and followed... changing it can be fine. 2. Having to fill out time sheets for my work and having to use a flowchart to know what to put in the Capex/Opex column for my time on a given task, so accounting can follow reporting practices.

dragonwriter 3y ago

> It’s the price of being publicly traded No, its not. Litigation holds apply to everyone, it is not just publicly-traded firms that get in trouble if they destroy evidence related to current or reasonably expected litigation (including, but not limited to, an enforcement agency investigation in which they have been notified to retain information for that purpose.)