I mean… I come from the forum scene and they were always called PMs, as in Private Message. What in the hell does DM stand for and when did things change from people calling them PMs to DMs.
You must log in or register to comment.
Twitter used Direct Message instead of Private Message because they needed to establish that there is legally no understanding of privacy for DMs, because Twitter will surrender the contents of DMs to law enforcement / government / data collection. Fediverse should also use DM because there is again no guarantee of privacy (and you do not expect there to be).
As if admins of the older forum softwares couldn’t just query the database for anyone’s private messages.
Still, the conversation is private, as in not public. Even if it is surrendered to the authorities, the’ll probably never be released publicly (unless leaked).
deleted by creator
I think I was clear, private as in not public. As in it’s not public domain.
“Public domain” is a copyright term which isn’t really relevant here. The point the other user is trying to make is that, legally speaking, calling something “private” when it very well may be not private is at best disingenuous and at worst a lawsuit waiting to happen.
deleted by creator
And it doesn’t change the fact that only you, the other person and the wiretapper know about that conversation ever happening… well also whoever they might have shared that with as well, but that’s still not public as in someone reading this comment. Everyone can read and confirm that this is what I wrote.
I agree partly with you but…
If the wiretapper releases that conversation and it appears on every TV in the World then it is public and the first thing you are going to say is “but that was a private conversation in a private room and was not meant to be public”. There is expectation of privacy. There is none in a DM. It is a direct message/contact between you, other person and potentially 99999 auditors, and the rest of the world. This is by design, not an exceptional situation.
Yeah, I know, I was just trying to clarify and couldn’t think of another term 🤷.
The truth is, if you share something online, whether it be in a PM or publicly, it can never ever be considered private. However, a PM’s content is harder to get to than reading this comment for example, that was my point.
No you were clear. You are just incorrect. Your “private messages” can be accessed by anyone who works at the site, and are typically scanned for analysis and that data about what you discuss is sold to market researchers.
So they named them direct messages so they couldn’t be accused of false advertisement.
Just because they’re not “public” doesn’t mean they’re “private”.
That is clear… well, at least regarding corporate social media. Admins in the fediverse can read PMs, but why would they, they have no insentive to do that. Hell, I’m still an admin of a forum and I can read all PMs but I have no incentive to do so, I couldn’t care less what people talk about in private.
Still, that doesn’t mean that the content of the conversation is of any interest of the company. The monetization of the converstaion, yes, but the actual converstaion, no.
You thought you were clear, but they’re saying companies didn’t believe it was clear.
I suppose it’s a slightly more accurate term. The messages here are not truly private since they are not encrypted, but since they are sent directly no one should read them in the normal course of using the platform. Calling them private might imply to people that other people cannot read them, rather than the reality that it is just very unlikely anyone will. I would also argue that if something is released to an authority it is not “private” even if it is not publicly available.
Honestly, it doesn’t really matter which you use. People will generally understand either way, so you can go ahead and keep saying PM and others will say DM and we can all just understand that they mean the same thing.
Fediverse should also use DM because there is again no guarantee of privacy (and you do not expect there to be).
Matrix is the fediverse’s messaging platform. It has end-to-end encryption, so you do actually have a guarantee of privacy.
There are DMs on lemmy and they are not using Matrix. Matrix’s security doesn’t matter if you are not actually using Matrix
Why would lemmy not have E2EE for person to person messages?
It’s quite a lot of work to implement. Maybe one day. Same problem on Mastodon
why bother? if you need actual private messaging, you can just use matrix
Privacy is improved when it is there by default
PM means private message. Nothing on Facebook or Twitter ever suggested that personal messages were private, so they used direct message instead to make sure there was no legal confusion.
DM means Dungeon Master to me, so I go with PM, if I don’t just say message.
I say “text” even though I almost never mean SMS
when did things change from people calling them PMs to DMs.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard it called a “Pungeon Master”
You, are a pun-geon master.
DM/PM/IM all mean the same thing
DM is direct message and seems to have started around the same time things culturally shifted away from forums and boards more toward social media.
And now people don’t even understand me, like I wrote “I’ll PM you” and they said “What 🤨” 🤦.
Guess I’ll have to shift from using PM to DM… though it seems completely illogical to me, but hey, that’s life I guess.
“I’ll Prime Minister you”
“I’ll prime meridian you”
“I’ll post mortem you”
“I’ll prima dona you”
“I’ll Pringle Mingle you”
“I’ll dungeon master you”
“I’ll deathmatch you”
That last one was probably used at some point in time though…
Gonna steal “pringle mingle”, sounds like a great insult lol
I prefer the terms DM, especially if the messaging system doesn’t rely on E2EE. If the server admins can read it, then it’s not private.
Well, yes that is true, but still, it’s not public either.
I might have to change my lingo to using DM instead of PM cuz some people don’t actually know what I’m talking about.
I think Twitter might have been the first time I saw DM used but it stands for direct message.
Twitter is where it started.
And every ‘hip’ person started talking about sliding into someone’s DM and it became the default application.
PM is still used in professional settings sometimes.
Direct Message.
I’ve only really seen “DM” used this way with Twitter, so I have to assume that’s what Twitter calls private messages.
Dude, everyone calls them DMs, on FB, here, Reddit… in fact, I’ve never seen anyone call them PMs, except for me.
Direct message became ubiquitous in the wake of “slide into your DM’s” as a phrase.
At least in my experience.
I assume it’s direct message. I also come from the forum scene and grew up with PMs. The cynic in me says maybe the big social media companies are shy of using the “private” word when their business model revolves around exploiting user data. Alternatively it’s just language evolving over time.
DM stands for Dungeon Master, the person who makes up the story in the game Dungeons and Dragons
More like Dork Moron! Now give me your lunch money.
It’s what some people call a /whisper
deleted by creator
Yeah of pst
