You can send a friend request to a user by clicking on a button marked “Friends” next to the follow button. When you do, the other user gets a message for a friend request. You can see a message for everyone that friend requests you on your screen. It says this: “<username> has given you a friend request!” If you choose to accept (whether on your profile page or the message in your messages page, there would be a button on the message to accept), you can now Private Chat with them. The Private Chat updates in real time. Everyone can see and report Private Chat messages, but only friends of the user and the user themself can post on their Private Chat.

there was once a friend list in scratch 1.4, but it was removed because it could confuse new users

I belive a private chat system was rejected, even if people could report, it could still lead to inappropriate messages, or people purposely make a group and discluding someone because they don't follow, or something else, would be against guidelines.

Za-Chary in the OLoRS wrote:

Scratch currently has public messaging, meaning anyone can see the comments that you write. As a result, people are more likely to be respectful since anyone can see the comment. However, with private messaging, people know that only the intended recipient can see the message, which could lead to many more disrespectful or inappropriate comments. The Scratch Team also simply does not have the resources to moderate a private messaging system, precisely because there would be a lot of bad comments. In addition, it is a huge Internet safety concern and is not the purpose of Scratch anyway.

Rejected or at least just the private messaging.

For the friends part, its a dupe. Please use the purple link to keep the conversation all In one place.

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