Slack debuts Connect, letting users DM any Slack user regardless of organization, and has updated its opt-in invite flow after feedback that it could be abused
and it's gonna be fascinating to see how people use it https://www.protocol.com/... Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / @lorenzofb : NEW: Slack admits it “made a mistake” launching a new feature that allowed anyone to message anyone else with few restrictions. The company changed course after content moderation experts and several other people complained about harassment risks. https://www.vice.com/... Kate Klonick / @klonick : *Video Meeting Services Ranked* 1. Zoom 2. Zoom 3. Slack 4. Google Hangouts 5. Facetime 6. Skype 7. BlueJeans/Messenger Rooms 8. A quick and painless death 9. A slightly drawn out, but painless, death 10. Cisco Webex Nick Statt / @nickstatt : Slack has already responded to the concern around its new DM feature being used for abuse or harassment by disabling invite messages. Here's the full statement. https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/... Emily G / @emilygorcenski : Everyone dm the ceo of slack and demand a block feature https://twitter.com/... Prof. Megan Goodwin / @mpgphd : tell me no women were on your design team without telling me no women were on your design team https://twitter.com/... Menotti Minutillo / @44 : to sum it up - can't block in slack - can't block the email - abuser can keep “inviting” with abusive language - even if your workspace disables the ability to accept these invites, all of the above remain true Kevin Collier / @kevincollier : If this makes you uncomfortable, remember that Slack doesn't encrypt your messages, can store them indefinitely even if you don't have access to them, and that in many cases your employer can read and search for everything you've posted, even DMs. https://twitter.com/... @dixie3flatline : Completely unsurprised that Slack either didn't predict or didn't care that this new feature could be used for unavoidable abuse and harassment https://twitter.com/... Nina Jankowicz / @wiczipedia : My first reaction to this news was “oh, another way men can harass women on the internet.” Did @SlackHQ talk to ANY women before rolling this out? https://twitter.com/... Rami Ismail / @tha_rami : Slack, a massive messaging app, learned today that DMs get used for harassment https://twitter.com/... @jason : SLACK should have launched DM before selling to Salesforce; predict DMs will 10x SLACK usage/growth. https://twitter.com/... Glenn Fleishman / @glennf : Slack has already backed off on some of the features: https://slack.com/... https://www.vice.com/... However, if you read the blog entry, it has a lot of “coming in spring/summer 2021” features for phishing protection and administration that should be there at launch. Bea / @beesmygod_ : i mean, this is the crappy excuse they came up with but its because whatsapp/discord/facebook messenger etc already exist and slack is pointless lol https://twitter.com/... Ben Jones / @dataremixed : I recall a few years back when I was at Tableau and we sought feedback from users about a commenting feature on author generated content, the *first thing* many women told us was: it better be opt-in & I *better* be able to block / flag / delete anything. Or I'm out. https://twitter.com/... @papapishu : God this is a nightmare lol https://twitter.com/... Michael Skelton / @codingo_ : Slack trying to be Whatsapp, Discord rushing off to be Teams. When do we move back to IRC again? Jacob Wolf / @jacobwolf : PR people, I swear to fucking god. Don't. https://twitter.com/... Byron Tau / @byrontau : So... It's employer-monitored WhatsApp. Great. https://twitter.com/... Tim Marchman / @timmarchman : People are going to use it as a tool for harassment and abuse, while Slack clients will use it as a surveillance tool (there will absolutely be naive leakers who end up getting fired or even arrested over this) https://twitter.com/... Molly Wood / @mollywood : WHAT. ON. EARTH. I am so exhausted. I was actually cautiously excited about this and now it's just another thing to block immediately. Super. https://twitter.com/... Ryn Daniels / @rynchantress : This feels like it would be an interesting opportunity for a post-mortem looking at the factors around not realizing this was a mistake _before_ building and launching it. https://twitter.com/... Badidea / @0xabad1dea : imagine if literally hundreds of people had been trying to get @SlackHQ's attention about avenues for harassment in their product for literally years and years https://twitter.com/... Zack Whittaker / @zackwhittaker : I'm genuinely amazed — and yet also not at all surprised — that this was the last thing Slack considered and literally the first thing everyone else thought about. https://www.vice.com/... https://twitter.com/... James Ball / @jamesrbuk : Genuinely kinda stunned that in 2021 and after *numerous* previous disasters of exactly this sort, tech companies still haven't learned a thing. https://twitter.com/... Nick Statt / @nickstatt : Slack was made aware of the issues with Connect DMs a week ago, as seen in this thread here, but didn't appear to address it before launch. https://twitter.com/... Carl T. Bergstrom / @ct_bergstrom : Nobody: Slack engineers: How can we fix the fact that people get spam and harassment on Facebook, Twitter, email, WhatsApp, Instagram, etc., but not Slack? https://twitter.com/... Hillel / @hillelogram : Chan's Law: any user-to-user interaction feature is a vector for harassment. https://twitter.com/... Rachel Tobac / @racheltobac : Every tool and feature must be examined from a cyber criminal or harasser's point of view. This changes a trust zone. Spam DM requests, phishing DMs within workspace comms is especially dangerous, new access for outsiders in Slack, harassment without ability to block. https://twitter.com/... Bhoka.eth / @boop : it has now been 6 years since i first requested a block function @SlackHQ https://twitter.com/... Millie Tran / @millie : It's truly unbelievable that companies still today don't anticipate and plan for their platforms to be used as tools for abuse & harassment https://twitter.com/... Ashley Mayer / @ashleymayer : I am ready to go bravely into this future if we can all just agree that cold outreach (from vendors, PR people, whatever) via Slack is NOT okay. https://twitter.com/... Edmund Lee / @edmundlee : Slack opening up across companies has been in the cards for a while. It's not just about replacing email. It has the potential to be a Bloomberg killer since most of the Terminal's activity is around messaging, that's how bond and currency traders conduct deals, through chat. Zack Whittaker / @zackwhittaker : Despite the fact that some organizations use Slack for everything, it still isn't end-to-end encrypted. Slack only recently started stripping metadata from uploaded files to stop doxxing users. https://techcrunch.com/... https://twitter.com/... @alfredwkng : hell yeah unsolicited pitches through instant messaging now awesome this rules everyone wants this good job money makers https://twitter.com/... Greg Otto / @gregotto : *furiously searching how to to block this feature* https://twitter.com/... Alicia Kennedy / @aliciakennedy : I like this. (For what it's worth, my Substack is subsidizing my small book advance so that I can put something more worthwhile into the world. I'd love the opportunity one day to edit & expand all these essays that I write each week.) https://nymag.com/... Eric Levitz / @ericlevitz : Our core problem is not that a newsletter platform is helping cash-strapped writers squeeze some tips out of their Twitter followings. It's that legions of journalists are going underemployed, even as statehouses across the country are going under-covered. https://nymag.com/... @nymag : Complaints about Substack reflect broader discontents with the modern media industry, writes @EricLevitz https://nymag.com/... Tom Namako / @tomnamako : “There are apparently a great many journalism consumers who aren't willing to pay $5 a month to support the work of dozens of journalists at a single publication but are eager to pay $8 a month to patronize a single blogger.” https://nymag.com/... Amy Westervelt / @amywestervelt : So... I agree with a lot of this except one thing: it seems to assume that investigative accountability reporters can't be independent. Hi, meet me. https://nymag.com/... Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : Slack now allows people to DM anyone else who uses the service regardless of organization, making it a general messaging app. As they've lost meetings to Zoom & organizations to Teams, this is an attempt to differentiate as a unified chat inbox for work. https://www.protocol.com/... Anil Dash / @anildash : This is a super interesting feature. Feels like AIM when that was an essential messaging app. https://twitter.com/... @ow : Oh my god slack is going to be the new msn, I'm here for this https://www.protocol.com/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
Slack had been extending Connect from shared channels for up to 20 organizations toward direct messaging across company boundaries, after previewing Connect DMs as part of its intercompany-messaging roadmap. The broad-DM launch made Slack look more like a general messaging network, but the abuse complaints immediately exposed the safety trade-off in that expansion.
By changing the invite flow and disabling invite messages, Slack is narrowing the newly launched cross-organization DM capability rather than treating messaging reach as an unqualified product benefit.
First-order effects
- Slack users no longer receive Connect invite messages under the original low-restriction design, while people seeking a new cross-company conversation face a more explicit opt-in process.
- Slack must operate Connect DMs with harassment risk as a product constraint immediately after acknowledging the launch mistake.
Second-order effects
- Slack's push to make Connect a broader messaging layer now depends on whether invitation controls preserve legitimate cross-company contact without recreating the open-reach behavior that drew criticism.
- Organizations using Slack gain a clearer boundary around unsolicited external contact, making trust in the service dependent on the invite flow rather than on DMs alone.
Third-order effects
- The episode supports a shift in workplace software toward treating cross-company messaging features as trust-and-safety infrastructure, not simply collaboration expansion.
- If platforms continue to connect users across organizational boundaries, consent and abuse controls are likely to determine which network effects they can safely retain.
The trend: Workplace collaboration platforms are extending beyond company walls, with user consent and anti-abuse design becoming prerequisites for network-style messaging.