this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2026
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Sixty minutes. That’s how long it took for a private Snapchat message to travel from Kristen Volpe’s phone to the FBI to the deputies standing in her elementary school hallway. On January 29, 2025, the 22-year-old student teacher at John L. Hensey Elementary in Washington, Illinois, vented to her boyfriend and two roommates — three people total — after a student closed her laptop mid-class and wiped her lesson plan. She referenced shooting the student or the school. She meant it as a frustrated joke. Snapchat’s algorithm didn’t get the humor.

No student reported her. No parent. No coworker. The flag was entirely automated. Snapchat’s policy permits voluntary emergency disclosures to law enforcement — no warrant required — when the platform determines imminent harm exists. The algorithm makes that initial call. Think of it like your Ring doorbell deciding to call 911 on its own, except the doorbell is reading your text messages.

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[–] spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 96 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

Questions for the ridiculous number of people on here who are perfectly willing to give up their right to privacy because you believe it makes schools and other places safer:

Have you read the 50+ page user agreement for your cell phone company? How about the user agreements of every app that has access to your cell phone, your PC mic or apps that have access to your files? Late model cars have microphones too, as do TV remotes. Microsoft has access to everything on your Windows PC. I'd give 100 to 1 odds that 99% of you haven't read any of those user agreements OR the UA for private chat apps you are using. Likewise are you sure any cloud storage you're using isn't scanning your documents for forbidden phrases?

Since you haven't read every word of each and every user agreement and think it keeps schools safe, you should be just fine with the fact that EVERYTHING you say or write may be available to law enforcement, even if you're talking to yourself while sitting on the toilet in your home. If you mutter that you'd like to kill someone or burn something misheard as a school building to the ground you are just fine with AI flagging it and the police knocking on your door in an hour, right? You'll also be just fine with losing your career and your job never being able to find another one, right? Right? After all, other people never know WTF someone dangerous and violent is going to do.

The number of people on here who are perfectly willing to give up all their rights and have their private communications monitored for something that is nothing more than security theater is unbelievable.

[–] anarchyrabbit@lemmy.world 32 points 1 day ago (1 children)

My gawd. People are missing the issue here. You described it pretty well OP.

Yes there are weirdos and they must be caught. Algorithms are getting out of hand though, targeting their wrong people and not the weirdos. There is a massive privacy issue here. Must every text that we send be accessible by the government? I don't buy the argument of "I have nothing to hide". When you are in the hot seat they will use any info they can get their hands on. make an offside joke they will use it.

Fuck this shit.

[–] nickiwest@lemmy.world 21 points 1 day ago

Even people who have "nothing to hide" aren't safe.

I've lost track of the number of articles about people who were wrongly accused by "AI" camera systems or flagged for arrest because their (relatively common-seeming) name matches or is close to an entirely different person who is a legitimate suspect. Some of those people have been jailed for weeks and have lost their jobs over what amounts to a clerical error.

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[–] Corvidae@lemmy.world 66 points 1 day ago (7 children)

Is it legal for a service to be called private when it is programmatically shared with law enforcement?

[–] Malyca@lemmy.zip 36 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It shouldn't be. Everyone needs to wise up to life in a police state now. Right now.

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[–] someone@lemmy.today 0 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

I'm glad this person's life was semi-ruined by using big tech.

I am tired of normies using horrible platforms and then acting Pikachu-level shocked when they have horrible privacy violations.

Tech illiteracy + Big tech exploiting tech illiteracy = profit and constant surveilance

and normies are too damn stupid to get it, and every once in a while one of them gets fucked, and then... suddenly... nothing changes yet again

and these normies with their acceptance of any TOS, even the shittiest of shit, and making opting out some sort of social misstep, like "What?! You really don't use WhatsApp?" with an ugly look, means I am glad these assholes occasionally suffer for their ignorance

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[–] BigMacHole@thelemmy.club 110 points 2 days ago (2 children)

It's HEARTENING to Know these Platforms have the ABILITY to STOP atrocities and Almost Always choose NOT too! <3

[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 67 points 2 days ago (11 children)

yeah.

Its amazing how they never once stopped an actual act of violence, but someone venting about a stressful day gets a full swat deployment.

[–] stickyprimer@lemmy.world 2 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

someone venting about a stressful day

It’s not that I think teachers shouldn’t vent about stress. But in this day and age, a teacher who has the poor judgment to vent about stress by expressing the desire to shoot a student, in writing, probably doesn’t belong in the classroom to begin with.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world -1 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (2 children)

Just about every parent I've ever met say they want to shoot or kill their kids.

It's a stupid thing to be sarcastic about in that moment, but no one really thinks we should be taking everyones kids away. (For that reason).

"I'm gonna kill him" is in so many American movies involving kids or someone talking about their spouse.

"I'm gonna strangle em'". Popular phrase..

None of them should be popular phrases, but they are, lol

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[–] treadful@lemmy.zip 439 points 2 days ago (58 children)

The amount of people in this thread that seem to think invasion of privacy is cool to police thought crime is honestly shocking. The subject and subject matter are completely irrelevant.

In addition, teachers are fucking people and venting and joking in private with close friends is sacrosanct.

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[–] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 154 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Now that you know everything on Snapchat is going through active automated filtering, consider what Snapchat has chosen NOT to flag and is allowing to flow freely, like sex trafficking and the sale of minors.

As unfair and life-changing as this event has been for this young teacher, I think the actual story of what Snapchat (and every other digital communication method) is reading/tracking yet allowing is a much, much bigger story. And dirtier. With billionaires and pedophiles and all manner of nasty allowables we do not yet know.

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[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 61 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Marvel at how AI stopped this non-existent threat, while also giving advice on the best way to kill yourself, or get the highest kill score in a mass shooting, or hack into other corporations.

Sure, this tech isn't ever going to start directly killing people it has determined are a problem, flipping off life support machines, crashing autonomous vehicles, etc.

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[–] postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 32 points 1 day ago

Welcome to post Constitution USA.

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