As an example, you can delete your messages in telegram. Even in Slack. I think it is reasonable to allow user completely erase its own history from the server.
Nope, "your messages" once they have been received by someone now belongs to that person too. If you say something crazy to me, you shouldn't get to deny it by deleting your messages. If I levy an accusation, I should be able to prove it by showing my message history...
Screen it if you want. Why are you chatting with person who can say something crazy to you in the first place?
I don't treat this feature as something bad, maybe it was a typo in message or just miss-click, so, allow to modify it. Maybe I sent some intimate information and don't want to keep it in history but trust person wouldn't screen it.
How would you prove your message history was not adulterated?
The easiest way would be to check the logs of the service itself, but what if those were deleted and only your local copy remains?
The judge would decide. If the app was on a secure platform (android/ios, non root/jailbroken), you could argue that the logs are genuine because the platform prevents you from manipulating the logs. The onus would be on the other party to prove that the logs were fabricated. I wouldn't count on it to secure a criminal conviction, but it would suffice in civil cases.
Those are chat services, which are obviously a different model. Twitter operates their DMs much more like mail or email. If you were allowed to delete the DMs you sent, you could easily threaten someone, then remove the offending message... which is exactly the issue they are having with harassment on the platform in its current iteration.
Maybe, instead of thinking that language is ephemeral, we should realize that what we say has lasting consequences. Maybe then we wont be so mad when we can't take what we said back.
What we say has lasting consequences, but we're not giving a deposition when socializing. We have no mechanism to show how we've evolved over time on any currently contentious issue - a weak "that was a long time ago" doesn't tend to matter. The ability to forget what is no longer important is a trait that is crucial to our brain function, and it stands to reason that it is crucial for a society.
I find Twitter DMs to be very much like a chat. It has the UI of a chat app and messages are stored on a centralized service. What makes it obviously a different model and more like email or mail?
It is indeed arguable what it looks like, but even within chat/IM applications, there is no consensus or convention on should the message be retractable or not. People shouldn't expect one or the other.
I wasn't making an argument either way about retracting messages. I was just surprised that someone would think that the DMs are obviously like e-mail when the UI looks like FB Messenger or Hangouts and message storage and transmission is controlled by a single company. I'm still curious to know how it's like e-mail.
Should a person be able to delete an email they sent to someone else after the other person has received it? How about a letter you mailed? Should you be able to go into their house and take the letter back? It’s like trying to unring a bell. Once you send it, you no longer own it; the recipient does.
