US agencies warn companies: Don’t delete Slack or Signal chats
US antitrust regulators are warning companies not to auto-delete Slack, Signal, and other “ephemeral” messages once an investigation is underway or reasonably foreseeable, effectively treating them like email for legal retention. Commenters weigh this against corporate practices of aggressive data deletion, driven by fears of e‑discovery costs, embarrassing disclosures, and legal risk, as well as by privacy and security concerns. The debate highlights a broader tension between the value of long-lived chat logs for everyday work and documentation, and the growing pressure—especially in regulated industries—to either archive everything or systematically purge it.
Scope of the new guidance
- Several commenters note the FTC/DOJ warning is mainly about not deleting relevant chats once a government investigation or foreseeable legal action exists (“litigation hold”), not about perpetual retention.
- Companies are expected to apply the same preservation standards to Slack/Signal as to email once on notice.
- Tools exist to automate legal holds and confirm employees are informed.
Slack defaults and retention configurations
- Slack free tier hides messages older than 90 days but does not delete them; history becomes visible again if the workspace pays.
- Many companies deliberately set aggressive retention limits (e.g., 7 days, 2 weeks for DMs, 30 days, 12 months) for risk or compliance reasons.
- Some see Slack as a “conversation/archive” and find short retention infuriating; others argue if Slack is your project archive, you have deeper process problems.
Legal risk, discovery cost, and reasons to delete
- Strong consensus that massive discovery costs and reputational risk drive deletion policies more than hiding explicit crimes.
- Large archives increase:
- Volume of documents lawyers must review.
- Chance of out-of-context, candid, or poorly worded messages being used against the company.
- Exposure in data breaches.
- Under Rule 26, parties must proactively disclose documents they may use, incentivizing not to keep unnecessary records at all.
- You cannot shorten retention after you anticipate litigation without risking sanctions.
Value of short vs long-lived chats
- Pro–short retention: forces real documentation in proper tools; improves privacy and security by narrowing the time window adversaries can access data; reduces gossip and toxic internal communication.
- Pro–long retention: long-lived channels are highly useful as an informal knowledge base, memory aid, and reference for technical decisions; short windows are seen as hostile to employees’ effectiveness.
Ephemeral messaging, phone/video, and surveillance
- Some predict regulators will eventually demand preservation of phone and video calls, given modern transcription and AI tooling.
- Others note recording laws require consent/notice, but many corporate lines are already recordable and often are recorded.
- There’s concern that as text channels become more regulated/logged, sensitive discussions will shift to calls or in-person meetings.
Signal and backups
- Signal is harder to centrally archive; backups require user action and can be cumbersome.
- Losing a device can effectively erase history, but deliberate “loss” during investigations risks obstruction charges.