I suggested having it disabled by default and letting us choose if we want it on or not.

The 12 people who voted no are afraid they're going to be taken out of their safe space.

Mute it all, solves all kinds of problem.

Global chat should be re-enabled with options to opt in or out. Maybe there could also be an option to create your own chat channels.

You know I wonder if they're going to remove Steam's chat because otherwise anyone with friends in the game can just communicate through that.

If the cross-faction comms terror is that people would relay info about their faction's troops and stuff to the opponent, anyone willing to do so is perfectly capable of doing it thanks to Steam.
And good luck to devs with disabling that.

So does pre-emptively locking everyone up to stop crime.

Well there is only 2 chats left on that list, end of game and team chat since voice chat isn't turned on.

Post launch!Or was it its alpha?

post alpha.

That's not how it works