Reading Private Messages

[Shawn Gossman]

What's your opinion of forum admins/mods reading the private messages of other members?

Are you for something like this? If so, how do you justify it?

Or are you against it? And if so, why are you against it?

I often see "right to privacy" as a reason for being against it. To play devil's advocate a little, what about "right of free speech" when members say something that may be considered against the rules?

I think this makes for a great topic and am interested in what you all have to say.

 

[AWS]

No, no and no. PM's are private. I heard the argument that because they were in the db they were not private. That's BS.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

No, no and no. PM's are private. I heard the argument that because they were in the db they were not private. That's BS.

Personally I agree. I will never read PMs or make it an option on my forums, outside of something reported for abuse but that feature has to be built-in.

However, during my phpBB days (the very early days), I did read PMs. I was a teenager back then. I caught a guy sending himself PMs on a spam forum I ran (that forum is another story lol) and confronted him.

He asked why I read PMs and said it was like me reading mail.

I felt horrible for it. Apologized to him and removed the modification to allow it.

Never did it after that.

 

[JennyorAlice]

I wouldn't normally go in and read someone's PM's. I can see where it's an invasion of privacy.

The only time I would is if someone was reporting an abuse, reporting someone breaking the rules, etc.

 

[Mike30]

No way, I have never done it under any circumstances and happy to be like that.
PM are private among the users. I have nothing to see there. If I want to know something, I ask directly to the user, period.