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 Is there any good reason they kept DMs in cleartext?  
 No? 
 It's kind of a trick question since there is no valid reason for doing cleartext DMs but I'm at the same time genuinely interested in why they went with it anyways. 
 I have no idea. Maybe someone more versed in the protocol can answer? nostr:nprofile1qqsqgc0uhmxycvm5gwvn944c7yfxnnxm0nyh8tt62zhrvtd3xkj8fhgpzdmhxue69uhhqatjwpkx2urpvuhx2ue0hswhhl 
 Poor Alex, we've tagged him multiple times today about this same question in another thread 😂 
 🫠 
 It's cleartext because it's just easier. There have been proposals to do E2EE on Mastodon, and there's even a branch where they implemented Signal's protocol, but it's too hard to have a cross platform experience with the preferred UX unless users control their keys directly, which users on Mastodon don't. 
 makes sense. thanks! 
 Mastodon is all about giving instance admins god mode over their fiefdom. 
 As opposed to one single entity like X.