#mastondon Friends!

@scottjenson @phillycodehound Maybe there are, but that's where everyone I would want to communicate with are.

#mastondon Friends!

There is a TON of improvements we could make to Private Mentions (often called DMs on other platforms) e.g.
* getting them out of the public timeline
* Having a stronger notification tied to the Private Mention tab
* (amount other things)

But here is my MAIN question: How critical is it that these message are encrypted? I'm not against encryption! It's just complex and will take time. If we were to make some UX changes as a first pass WITHOUT encryption would you be OK with that (at least for now?)

If you MUST have encryption, that's fine, please do me the favor of replying explaining why you need it.

@scottjenson I am kind of surprised that no one has mentioned that "oh the admins of the servers shouldnt see my DMs!" Creates a moderation nightmare and a harassment loophole that really shouldnt be considered worth the hassle. I am on team "just use signal" because if you need to have a really private conversation with someone who didnt give you their private contact information, no you dont.

@scottjenson

Signal makes it easy to create a revocable "message me" link. I have one in my profile. If anyone wants to send me an encrypted message they can click on it and send one pretty easily.

I think reply controls and UX improvements should come first, maybe with, as others suggested, a note that the message is not encrypted (yet)

@scottjenson

Because "private" means "private", on whatever platform.

Platforms have different purposes. I'm not seeking for a Signal replacement, I just want the promise of "private" conversations to be kept. Like I'd expect it from any other platform that is speaking of "private" messages.

Like I expect every car to have functional safety belts.

in 2026, gabe is absolutely right. a few years ago, i would've been the first one debating this position... but it's 2026.
@gabek @scottjenson

More pointedly, I would accept DMs from (and periodically check my inbox for) Mastodon but i would not give my unique and precious signal identifier to all of mastodon and all who crawl it @katzenberger @scottjenson

@by_caballero @katzenberger This is something that I have to admit a blindspot. There appear to be so many nuanced layers to "sending and encrypted message". For example, some just want to keep the admin from seeing stuff (that seems like the lowest level)

But at the highest level is for example protext organizing. I can't imagine ANYONE wanting to do that from a Mastodon account only because your profile and public posts likely leak a tremendous amount of personal info.

If you had a LOCKED DOWN account, sure it could work. My point is that I'm trying to understand these very different usages as we could naively asume we're good at one when we aren't. For example, I strongly feel that Signal very much still has a role here even if we do implement it correctly.

You know who's thought a lot about secure messaging? SWF's @mallory .

See also:
https://socialwebfoundation.org/2025/12/19/implementing-encrypted-messaging-over-activitypub/

@scottjenson @katzenberger

@gbargoud makes sense, thank you

@mray I so appreciate your concerns. It's actually why (personally, I'll add) I'm concerned why encryption may take a while (the Mastodon team is very thorough and would not release a rushed version of this) This is why my original post really had nothing to do with "should we add encryption" but was rather "while we're waiting can we at least make some improvements?"

@by_caballero @gabek We've publicly announced we're working on encryption. It's a TON of backend work. It can proceed in parallel with UX work. It's not one vs the other. Especially as the UX work is FAR less than the encryption work

#mastondon Friends!

There is a TON of improvements we could make to Private Mentions (often called DMs on other platforms) e.g.
* getting them out of the public timeline
* Having a stronger notification tied to the Private Mention tab
* (amount other things)

But here is my MAIN question: How critical is it that these message are encrypted? I'm not against encryption! It's just complex and will take time. If we were to make some UX changes as a first pass WITHOUT encryption would you be OK with that (at least for now?)

If you MUST have encryption, that's fine, please do me the favor of replying explaining why you need it.

#mastondon Friends!

There is a TON of improvements we could make to Private Mentions (often called DMs on other platforms) e.g.
* getting them out of the public timeline
* Having a stronger notification tied to the Private Mention tab
* (amount other things)

But here is my MAIN question: How critical is it that these message are encrypted? I'm not against encryption! It's just complex and will take time. If we were to make some UX changes as a first pass WITHOUT encryption would you be OK with that (at least for now?)

If you MUST have encryption, that's fine, please do me the favor of replying explaining why you need it.

@scottjenson I think any service with an implication of privacy should be encrypted, but that encryption needs to be done right. And the UI needs to convey the level of encryption clearly so people don't make incorrect assumptions about the security of their communications.

So I'm okay with the UX coming first, if it's designed with future encrypted messaging in mind.

I get DMs are not the focus of the app, so probably not a big priority, but they are still useful and important to many users.

@scottjenson I don't see much wiggle-room for improvement if it is not clear how it works under the hood.

Ideally encryption feels almost imperceptible, and needs a mere indication on the side, but I guess the UX work won't be to GET THERE – but is to make the emerging pain points more bearable.

I think the UX you would want to improve is connected more with the FEP itself than any UI concerns. Depending on what they come up with you'll be free to do what you want – or deal with strange constraints. (Key handling seems to be the arch enemy of UX in encryption if you ask me :P)

#mastondon Friends!

There is a TON of improvements we could make to Private Mentions (often called DMs on other platforms) e.g.
* getting them out of the public timeline
* Having a stronger notification tied to the Private Mention tab
* (amount other things)

But here is my MAIN question: How critical is it that these message are encrypted? I'm not against encryption! It's just complex and will take time. If we were to make some UX changes as a first pass WITHOUT encryption would you be OK with that (at least for now?)

If you MUST have encryption, that's fine, please do me the favor of replying explaining why you need it.

@scottjenson My take is encryption is important, but not important enough that you shouldn't make UX improvements before having it

I particularly would like to see the list of mentions decoupled from the list of recipients, though I wonder if that might cause problems with replies from some software... but still

#mastondon Friends!

There is a TON of improvements we could make to Private Mentions (often called DMs on other platforms) e.g.
* getting them out of the public timeline
* Having a stronger notification tied to the Private Mention tab
* (amount other things)

But here is my MAIN question: How critical is it that these message are encrypted? I'm not against encryption! It's just complex and will take time. If we were to make some UX changes as a first pass WITHOUT encryption would you be OK with that (at least for now?)

If you MUST have encryption, that's fine, please do me the favor of replying explaining why you need it.