I almost never use the Voice Message feature of iMessage. But I accidentally trigger it probably at least once a month. Sometimes, I swear, I haven't even tapped the icon - maybe it is also triggered by a shaking motion (?)...

So I'll be in an office that's totally silent except for a few quietly humming computer fans, and trying to discreetly dash off a message regarding some time-sensitive family matter, when suddenly... "doo-doop!!!" the Voice Message feature starts listening for speech input. Fantastic. Now everyone around me has been alerted that I'm "messing around" with my phone during work. I think just about everyone uses their mobile devices from time to time while working - but nobody is trying to broadcast that fact.

The problem is, this feature has total disregard for the Silent Mode switch. Somehow Voice Messages are special. Voice Messages don't have to play by the rules. It is called "Silent Mode", not "Silent-except-when-composing-a-voice-message-mode", so naturally the alert sound is unexpected (and unwelcome for some users).

_{I acknowledge that there may be some rare cases where a sound should be allowed to play even in Silent Mode. Examples that come to mind include: ① An emergency warning, ② an alarm set by the user, or ③ some media the user is trying to play intentionally (although even this would be nice to have preceded with a confirmation prompt). In the case of the Voice Message sound it is not a matter of safety, nor is it something that has been specified by the user. It's just an annoying intrusion that breaks the convention of silence that Silent Mode was supposed to ensure.}

I have looked through settings, and done web searches, but I have not found any method for disabling the Voice Message sound in iMessage. Can it be done? If so, how? Thanks.