this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2023
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I've not been on either platform long enough to use the DMs, but this is a good point.
After all, DMs aren't actually private on either platform, as far as I'm aware.
If they're not end to end encrypted, your messages are not actually private on any platform.
It's a bit more obvious in the Fediverse than elsewhere, as direct messages are generally stored on two separate servers (sender and receiver). Furthermore each server tends to be smaller: if Zuckerberg decides to go through people's DMs it's unlikely to affect any particular Facebook user, but if the owner of a Mastodon instance does the same it's small enough that she could actually get an overview. It's mostly a false sense of security embedded in larger services, but people are all about having a false sense of security.
Like anything, depends on the threat model. Private from your little sister? Probably. Private from your boss, at least in the next few months prior to them being leaked? Also probably. Private enough?
That's to some extent a question that can only be answered individually, as everyone's threat models differ. I suppose this fact (everyone having differing threat models) is one of the reasons that so many arguments occur over security.
In the end any successful chat service is going to be used by horny teenagers sharing nudes with each other, which is honestly for me better reason than any state secret why all communications should be end to end encrypted at all times. I don't trust Zuckerberg or Musk with that, or any other third party for that matter.
"Private" is not really a binary concept.
They're "private" in the sense that no one can see them other than the participants and the server admin (if they really wanted to).
They're not private in the sense that they can be hacked and leaked, or subpoenaed.