Facebook chat has turned into anything but a real-time conversation. As Facebook rolls out the changes to its messaging platform, more and more users Facebook chats are being logged… and they may not even know it yet. So right now is a more crucial time than ever to watch what you say.
I cannot be quite sure how many people have the new platform. Mine changed earlier this week, my roommate’s has been this way for a few months, and my other friends have no idea what I’m talking about when I mention it, so obviously they haven’t received the changes just yet. And people that haven’t received the changes probably have no idea that their conversations are being logged by their friends who have.
For those of you who may not have experienced the changes yet, here’s the gist of them:
- You can claim a Facebook email address. Then everything that is sent to that email address will show up in your Facebook inbox.
- You can receive chats and messages as texts straight to your mobile phones. If your friend checks “send to phone,” you will receive it as a text and can reply via text message as well.
- And now most importantly… everything is logged. Indefinitely. Your messages, emails, texts, and chats are all logged in your inbox by friend.
Facebook chat has always been a very casual conversation tool because it has always been one of the features of Facebook that is most similar to an actual social interaction. You chat with a friend, get offline, and your chat history disappears after a reasonable amount of time.
Watching what you say has become important as ever.
Not only do you have your words saved on your account indefinitely, but so do your friends. Because this feature is still so new, there have yet to be any big ramifications, but it’s only a matter of time until the privacy issue is brought up to Facebook once again.
Do you think there will be issues with the new messaging system? Why/why not?
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