New DM Slack Between Companies Is Cool, but Not Private
Slack launched a new direct messaging feature that allows people from different companies to communicate with each other. No problem, right? The service is voluntary, in the sense that you need to approve anyone who tries to harass you about your work on Slack before their messages show up – thank goodness . But that’s not the only Slack “Connect DM” feature worth knowing about.
First, and most obviously, your company’s Slack admins have complete control over whether you can use Connect DM or not. This option is completely unavailable to me in my Lifehacker Slack account, but I can see that it is available in other corporate Slacks that I can access. I can’t try it on my own, maybe your Slack masters haven’t installed it either. up or intentionally deny you access to it. (You will be back to regular text messaging – which isn’t a bad thing, since at least you can effectively block people you don’t want to talk to.)
Second, be aware that Slack admins – indeed, your company – retain incredible power over the content that passes through your company’s Slack. You might think direct messaging is a personal exchange of messages between you and another person in another company, through this magical neutral zone between your two corporate environments. In fact, your chats are still tied to your company’s existing policies.
As David Pearce describes in this protocol article:
“Each company controls its own messages, which essentially means that the shared channel is actually two separate spaces split together in the Slack user interface. Administrators of either party can destroy all their messages without touching the messages of the other party. Slack is also reviewing most of the organizations using Connect to make sure the tim@apple.com you work with is really the right fit. ”
Remember, your admins don’t need to save this post deletion step in case you quit your job or get fired / fired. Your company (or a rogue Slack admin) might decide that DM Slack is fine now, only for that permission to be removed and your posts removed at some point in the future.
If you’re having a conversation where details are important, consider taking screenshots or copying / pasting your chat to another location at regular intervals. Or take it to the post office. Don’t assume that what is good one day will be great forever – corporate life is not always so straightforward. And of course, any changes to your company’s storage settings will affect your DMs as well .
Finally, and most importantly, know that anything you send to Connect DM is not necessarily confidential. Slack admins have to overcome major hurdles to gain access to what people are saying in a company’s Slack – whether it’s public or private channels, internal private messages, or, now, Connect direct messages – are what they can and will do if they feel they need it .
It might seem like Connect DM exists outside of your company’s “space”, but it doesn’t. Don’t share information that violates your company’s policy, heck, you might not want to share anything that isn’t work-related, period. You never know who will read it.