Slack immediately adjusts Connect DM feature again due to risk of harassment

Slack is discontinuing a new feature that allows users to message anyone. The platform released Connect DMs this week, which allows any Slack user to send an invitation containing a message. However, that can lead to intimidation.

The adjustment follows a few hours after the introduction of the new feature. That feature is Connect DM, a part of Slack Connect that was announced last year. Slack Connect makes it possible to link two different Slack servers together, for example by creating channels where users from one and the other server are seated. On Wednesday, Slack introduced a major change to that system. With Connect DMs, it is possible to send any Slack user an invitation to a conversation, including a personal message.

Users soon discovered that the system was easy to abuse. The sender can put any message in an invitation, which will then be sent directly to the recipient’s e-mail inbox. It is also not possible to filter the emails as they come from the general [email protected] address and there is no limit on how many emails a user can send.

Slack modified the feature after criticism from users. “We received a lot of feedback from users about how the new feature can be abused to send abusive and intimidating messages,” the company wrote in a statement to Techcrunch. It becomes impossible to add messages to an invitation. The feature will be an opt-in for administrators, who will be able to enable or disable Connect DMs in general for their entire organization.