GC Message Reload Update
Tonight some others (@ALeXaNdEr0712 , @Axtyn , @mysteriousClover) and myself had a long discussion on the update that allows you to reload previous messages in the group chats, with seemingly no limit to how far you can go back. I personally got back to Dec. 19 before giving up on trying to find and end to it. There is a lot of concerns that have been expressed by myself and by others. Some of these concerns are:
1. Lack of privacy/confidentiality- A lot of us display different levels of vulnerability depending on who is in the room at the time. As imperfect as it is, some of us have bad relationships and/or don't trust certain people on cups and do not want them to know everything about us. But with this update anyone can go back and see whatever you said at any day/time which removes the privacy and confidentiality in group chats.
2. Not feeling safe sharing in group chats anymore- As stated above, anyone at any time can see what you said no matter how long ago. A lot of us have really vulnerable and emotional moments in the group chats and now those moments are essentially permanently on display for everyone to see. It makes a lot of us feel unsafe about sharing in group chats.
3. Anyone being able to go back and access your previous links at any time- A lot of us send pictures whether it be of ourselves, art we've created, memes, objects we have/want. Those links are now always going to be accessible to anyone. I know that for myself personally, a lot of my artwork is very personal to me but there is a small group of trusted individuals within group chats who I'm comfortable sharing the artwork with. But now I cannot share it with even them, because anyone can reload the old messages, click on the link and see it.
4. Past triggering messages and conflicts never going away- With being able to reload old messages with no limit on how far back you can go, people will be able to go back to old conflicts which could re-spark the conflict if they see it and are upset by what was said. It makes moving on from conflict even harder and now it will never completely go away. Same for triggering messages, the wont go away which could cause a lot more people to become triggered in the group chats.
5. Trolling and harassment- There's always going to be trolls and harassment to some degree online. That's unavoidable. But the issue seems to be a lot more severe lately. And now trolls will be able to go back and see old conversations and better target other users. It also makes harassment much easier because there will always be access to things people have said.
Those are just a few concerns that come to mind immediately. I'm sure other people could think of other concerns as well too, though. I and many others simply do not find this update to be one that is comforting, safe or helpful. It instead is stress and anxiety inducing and causing a lot of us to feel like we cannot open up and receive support within the group chats anymore. I can't really find any reason for this to be more of a good idea than a bad idea. I'm sure the intentions behind it were good but the negative impact truly seems to be outweighing the positive intentions.
Tagging- @ASilentObserver , @Heather225 , @GlenM
@Mack
Yea this update sucks wtf, I dunno who thought it was a good idea, there's no privacy anymore and some of us don't use forums or pms and I personally just use the gcs now I can't even do that, sometimes it takes a lot to trust people and share and be vulnerable there are stuff I don't want everyone to know and now they can, nobody even announced this and ain't nice knowing someone can see what I've said in the past to people I felt comfortable sharing with :/ and the harassment and the trolls issue ain't helping either. I hope someone can fix this.
@Mack
i think it’s also important to bring up the topic of stalking and privacy, I know me and some other friends have not had the best experiences with other people. That has led a lot of us to only be most comfortable with other people who we only want to see us vulnerable as mack said above, with this new update anyone can go back up and more or less stalk a member and see all old conversations. And that to me is very scary.
Second general privacy, mods do not always catch things that have been said and do not delete it. By the time a mod comes back they would need to search far upwards to remove a troubling message which might not always be possible. And as mack said with art there is also more private things that can be shared, but some other members will also share private things about members to hurt them, or things they are uncomfortable with, and besides from those who purposely do this friends will sometimes do this as well by mistake, like sharing a more private thought with a friend that they didn’t realize was more private. It is a great peace of mind to know that will be gone, but with this new update it is not
I think the fact messages disappear is what set apart forums from rooms, which is often why people won’t get support in threads and rather share in a room. So overall I do not even think this new update is unnecessary since we already have something like it but also unsafe and discomforting to many members.
@Mack Hi! Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the new update! You point out a lot of good thoughts and feedback is really helpful with any new updates! I think with any update it takes time for everyone to learn why the update has been made and for the adjustment to take place! I'm sure there's a reason why the update was made, but feedback is good! Thank you for sharing!
@LittleBirdie30
i think often updates are made for many reasons but manly because they think it’s better for members without asking us, for most updates they spend time sending these out without asking our ideas, I feel so much more could be solved if they asked what we wanted and checked ideas with us.
@Astraeuss
having something like a feedback form before the update happens would also be a decent idea. or having a poll of what the community ACTUALLY wants.
@Astraeuss
I agree Astra, if only they tried to get feedback from members instead of putting on a new feature that can make it so that people don't feel comfortable discussing on chats. I love cups but if people can go back and look at stuff from a while ago, it can become a big issue quickly, as you all know.
@ChickensandHotCocoa
of course, honestly if they took the time to talk to others and see opinions before hand not only would it cost them less money but also less time.
@LittleBirdie30 This update was a glitch.
Please read more about it by clicking the link:https://www.7cups.com/forumSiteUpdatesInformationFortheCommunity_100/Siteupdatesandchanges_2007/HeadsupontheReloadMessagesfunction_295214/
This post was written By Our Community Director/Head of Community, Heather 225.
I hope this helps.
@Mack
lets all be real here- there was no point to this update, and it really does suck. we have no privacy, and uncomfortable, and its making cups not a safe place for some anymore. cups is meant to be a safe place, and having issues with privacy, trolling and harassment isn't helping anything.
i would also like to bring up the issue with triggers and conflicts. in the past, if we have had a conflict, we either figure it out, or mute. with this update, you can go back and spark the conflict again, just by going back to the messages. with this, they can start rumors, or make things a larger deal than they needed to be. now with triggers, all of us in rooms are aware of what triggers others might have. now, with the update, you can't really escape them.
so now, its just really bad, and i know that some people will be afraid to either open up, or share what's on their mind in fear of being muted or given warnings from past days or even weeks. since you can go back and see other messages, mods or admins could give you warnings for things that have happened a while back. living in fear of getting banned because someone went back to see the messages, makes cups an unsafe place for most.
so mods can go back, see messages, then mute or ban you when you are offline. since it is from a past issue, you would most likely have no idea what you did wrong. so yes, this update is stupid and very unnecessary, and is changing the functionality of cups for the worse.
I think that Mack and many others have made multiple really good points,
I think that it is a huge invasion of privacy and lack of consent to possibly personal information or just stuff that makes you vulnerable. Because if someone feels comfortable to share in the moment we should not be able to go back and reread previous conversations. I am new to 7 cups and i don't think i should be able to see what others have talked about if it's not relevant in the current conversation. On the point about links, this can be very dangerous. I felt comfortable to show a few others what my hair looks like but still keeping my identity safe. Because it was relevant in what we were discussing i didnt mind showing my hair. This does not mean I consent to anybody going back because I don't have relationships with everybody here yet I don't know what could be said or linked to any photos or links I or others have shown.
There is also a much higher risk of stalking and this makes me highly uncomfortable and feel unsafe having conversations with people, Cause now anyone could go back and see what someone was struggling with months ago and this could be very triggering if it was brought back up in conversations or group chats where the person isn't comfortable or has recovered and wants to move on. mods can go back and see messages. They could mute or ban you when you are offline. Even if it was a past issue and is now irrelevant
It’s made me feel unsafe knowing that what once was private information and conversations is now public and anyone one can see. Their is also now a fear that someone could try and help with a conflict or issue that already been resolved leading to misunderstandings and misinformation. I would like to be able to share are with my friends and talk about it but it can be quite personal and I wouldn’t want just anyone to be able to see it. ~Like astra said on of my favorite parts about 7 cups and this platform was after having a conversation it was gone and if I didn’t want to talk about it anymore nobody else would know this made me feel safe but now this has been taken away and all of my passes thoughts and chats could put anyone in a variable place or situation
(I could speak on the fact this update is not helpful but I think we all get the point)
Thank you for taking your time to listen and I hope this can be improved -Leo
@LeoYouth
^^ agree Leo
@LeoYouth
thanks Leo, you put this together really well. And your very right, I don’t think we need to state again how bad this is.
@Mack
I agree with everything said in this post. Honestly it just makes me uncomfortable knowing people could see any messages I've sent at any time. Especially if it's like someone starts a fight then leaves and I need to vent about how it made me feel, they could then come back in and take that as personally attacking them and use it against me even though it was just a vent about being upset after a fight.
@Mack Thanks for bringing this up! I wasn't even aware. Years ago we were told an update and it was supposed to be 24 hours- which didn't end up working. I saw nothing about an update this time. I am feeling a bit frustrated with changes and limited communication.
@AffyAvo
Thats something we all made comment of as well. We never have any idea what updates will bring. We’ve been frustrated with other updates and changes but this one is genuinely concerning for us.
@AffyAvo
thank you for adding this, I find this especially disheartening seeing that this has already not gone well, I think more over the fact this didn’t work well in a 24 hour period should not have lead to a forever period.
Beyond that as well as you and many of us have said we have no transparency, updates get acted open with no communication to us. We were told this update came from the community, but I don’t see how we can call it such, while a member or a few members or even listeners could have said some togther I don’t think we can count this as community backed when the majority of the community, even active ones such as ourselves did not know this was happening, or have any say.
Although you are on adult side and I know this issue wouldn’t be as prominent we have major stalking issues (mostly coming from adults). This leads many of us to feel unsafe in rooms where we share during certain times or when we see others active in the rooms, and while there can be lurkers it is not the same as someone being able to stalk.
I also find it quiet irrational that the old messages were not reset before this update was enacted. If we had been told this was happening and old messages would be cleared before hand I think that even this could have made it less shocking to the community, because now we have many moments we can not get rid of, along with pictures and other things we have shared so on, although this update should not be here AT ALL if we had it cleared we could have at least adjusted what and how we talked and did things until it was gone, and feedback was given to them.
once again thank you for your input as I see this as another major factor to this update💜
@Astraeuss Just clearing up the 24 hour thing, it didn't work back then meaning tech didn't implement the capability to go back that far.
I very much agree on the safety aspect, for adults and teens. What someone chooses to share in a group chat can differ based on how long it stays up for. And yes, with teens the safety concern is higher, even with the greater oversight of account creation with teen access. I would like to know how far back we can go, I tried testing it but always ended up refreshing somehow after a bit - and that wasn't consistent so it doesn't appear the refresh occurred by hitting the max past.
@AffyAvo
i have gotten back to about the start of December before I gave up, but over all that is still far too long.
Similar change was made with 1-1s. There I think it is a positive change, I can actually review the entirely of a recent chat. An update informing people would be nice though.
@AffyAvo
i agree fully to this as well, I think it’s very important to see up in 1-1 since there is no danger in this and can keep people more accountable, I actually really loved that update. But as said in there it’s more of a text message back and forth that has no harm being saved while in chats there is so many dangers and uncomfortably
@Mack Hi there.
I am one of the Group Support Leaders here, on the adult side.
On the adult side, I am not aware of this issue happening.
It sounds to me like it might be a teen side issue,only.
Here at 7cups, we take privacy and safety seriously.
It sounds to me like it might be a glitch of some kind.
Thanks for bringing this issue up.
I hope this gets fixed.
I will let Our Group Support Manager know this.
Thank you for raising this issue.
@calmMango9611
We have already brought it up to admin. The odds of something changing is low, but everyone who knows me on cups knows I’m going to relentlessly say what I think. And I think being able to reload past messages in group chats is unsafe and makes many of us uncomfortable as well as takes away our privacy.
@calmMango9611 It's happening on the adult side too, I tested it out.
@AffyAvo Thanks for making me aware of this.