I do not think the majority of people would agree that chat is a textual representation of a conversation. It’s its own thing and this is evident by slang, leetcode, emoticons, emoji, and euphemisms (🍆💦). How people talk over text is completely different than how they speak in real life, especially when they’re typing fast.
Why isn’t it just deleted by default. A government that actually cared about its citizens wouldn’t let the data be sold off at all.