Well in most social media you will get a message but you don't have to reply to it and it will be sent to a different folder for you to decide if you want to answer it. As an admin I still have to add someone as a friend just to chat with them. I may be wrong but I do not see any special settings in chat that allow you to accept chat from everyone or just friends. As someone who has had to reach out to organizations and groups on social media it's important to be able to send a message to someone especially if it's time sensitive. I also shouldn't have to join a group or organization just to send messages to them. The concept of let's just make it so you have to be friends with someone to be able to chat with them is the opposite of how a social network site should be running. I may want to chat with someone but may not want them on my friends list. Also your telephone and a social network are two different tools with two different purposes. The concept of everyone being able to build the website they want shouldn't be confined to one set of strict rules. You can't clamp down on privacy because of your interpretation of what a social media website should be like. You as an individual should be able to decide what privacy settings you want on your site and let admins have that option of what works best for them or not. I heard the direct chat on people's profiles are being fixed in update and that's great but an admin should be able to start a chat with anyone without adding someone as a friend. I shouldn't force myself to be on someone's friends list. Also my website encourages interaction with people thus people should still be able to send people chats and it's up to the other member to continue the chat or block them etc. I can't prevent a small percentage of pervs harassing people but that's why there's a block and report button. Chat is essentially just a way of people to conversate as they would in public. Same rules would apply but unlike in public you have better safeguards like block and report. Even in some niche websites adding someone as a friend is useless especially if the site isn't for personal use but to rather engage