What are your thoughts on Signal's policy for edited messages?

TL:DR: When you edit an unread message on Signal, the recipient can see all the changes you made. Is that a good thing? I don’t think so.

I’m sure a lot of you know that when you edit a message on Signal, the recipient can still see not just the original version but every version of the message if you edited it multiple times.

IMHO, if the user has not seen the message, we should be able to hide all the edits from them.

If you are having an argument with your partner over text and send a harsh reply that they have not seen but that you quickly edited, they would still be able to see your harsh words.

I understand that if the recipient hasn’t seen the message, I can still delete it, but I wish we could hide edits.

I remember when Telegram introduced the ability to edit and delete past messages, one of my friends felt that the way Telegram implemented it was wrong because it shattered the integrity of messages. Telegram allows you to delete messages you sent months or years ago with zero indication that you deleted anything. This can easily change the meaning of past conversations when someone reads them back again. It can easily create a lie. It’s actually the primary reason my friend stopped using Telegram.

Signal’s way of implementing edited and deleted messages is a good counter to that, but I wish it were possible to hide edits when the recipient has not seen the message. If the recipient has seen the message, I’m ok with them having access to previous versions.

What do you think about it?