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Community Direct Messages (Beta)

Foster meaningful connections between members of your Community through private conversations

Updated over 2 weeks ago

Direct Messages allows your community members to chat privately with each other and with admins, fostering deeper connections and more personalized engagement.

This feature helps build meaningful relationships within your community while giving you control over who can message whom.

📝 NOTE: Direct Messages is currently in Beta. As a Beta feature, you may encounter occasional issues as we continue to improve the experience.

Enable Direct Messages

  1. Navigate to Community > Settings

  2. Scroll down to find the Direct Messages section

  3. Toggle the feature to Active to enable it

  4. Configure your preferences:

    • Members can message other members

      • Allow any logged-in user to use direct messages

    • Members can message admins

      • Only active subscribers can chat with admins

    • Subscription plans

      • Select which plans can message admins

ℹ️ INFO: The Direct Messages feature inherits your Community Engagement Settings. If you set Community Engagement to Subscribers Only, other users who do not have active subscriptions will not be able to send direct messages and will be redirected to subscribe if they try.


Send a Direct Message

For Admins

  1. Navigate to People

  2. Find the member you want to message

  3. Click the ellipsis (...) menu next to their name

  4. Select Send Direct Message

💡 TIP: Admins can always message members, and members can reply if admins initiated the conversation.

For All Community Members

  1. Navigate to your Community page (/community)

  2. Find the member in the Community page

  3. Click the name or avatar to access their Profile

  4. Click Message to start the conversation

📝 NOTE: You cannot search for members directly. You must first find them in the Community page before messaging them.


Privacy & Security

  • Direct messages are encrypted both at rest and in transit, but are not end-to-end encrypted

  • Messages are intended to be private, so store admins or team members cannot access direct messages when impersonating users

  • Uscreen may review direct messages for support, tuning, and forensics, only when necessary (e.g., to fix a bug)

    • When access is required, Uscreen treats your data with the highest level of confidentiality

  • As a community admin, you will only see direct messages if they are reported through the moderation feature

ℹ️ INFO: This ensures complete privacy for all your community conversations.


Share Content in Direct Messages

Links

To share clickable links, include the full URL with https://

  • ✔️ Will work: https://www.uscreen.tv

  • ✖️ Will not work: uscreen.tv

Media Support

  • All members with DM access can send GIFs and catalog links

  • Admin-to-member conversations support image uploads

  • Member-to-member conversations cannot send images yet

    • pending moderation tools to avoid inappropriate content in private spaces without admin visibility

📝 NOTE: Images are automatically removed after 90 days, so download any important pictures you need before they get removed.


Important Limitations

  • Direct Messages are only available to active paying subscribers

  • Trial accounts cannot use direct messages

  • Free registered users (leads) cannot access direct messages

  • Community must be enabled to use Direct Messages

  • Disabling Direct Messages hides but does not delete content


FAQs

Can I have direct messages without enabling community?

No, direct messages are part of the community feature and cannot be enabled separately.

Can admins or Uscreen staff read private messages?

Store admins cannot access direct messages when impersonating users. Uscreen cannot immediately view these private messages and may only access them when necessary for support or to fix issues, always maintaining strict confidentiality.

💬 We'd love to hear from you, so here's how you can submit feedback.

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