technologySixty 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.
Another great example of how effective mass surveillance is on preventing actual crime.
An interesting social phenomenon is that messages used to be called "PMs" ie "private messages" and are now often referred to as "DMs" ie "direct messages". The implication being DMs don't have any expectation of privacy.
Rule of thumb, never type anything into an electronic device that you wouldn't say to a court room.
school computers have surveillance tech in them that will call the cops if you write something and then delete it without posting
we are so fucked, we need a right to digital privacy that is created and enforced at the hardware level
I'm pretty sure I've read that Discord is the same, with a case of some message ending up with the FBI within an hour. Unfortunately I don't recall the details. It wouldn't surprise me if the majority of major commercial chat platforms do the same thing though.
And yet somehow they just can't deal with that 09a shit people won't shut up about, curious
Comedy is illegal??
"private Snapchat" does not exist. If you put something online in any capacity it's not private anymore. Folks really need to learn this
Just as a reminder for everyone: everything we do online is trolling. I’m trolling, you’re trolling, everyone posting their dogs on instagram? The dog is trolling.
If I post Toby Toebeanz asking for a tummy rub... the cat is trolling!
ⓘ This user is suspected of being a bear. Please report any suspawcious behaviour.
I’m here for the free snacks
)
I guess normies need to understand what fed posting is and not do it.
that's why you gotta say "unalive with a pew pew"
The olds mock the kids for self-censoring their speech. The kids correctly understand that they live in a police state panopticon and that certain kinds of speech are risky to type out.
you always see some old guy under a video or a post of someone censoring a word replying with "are we scared of being offended from the word suicide now?" not knowing words like "kill" or "death" can get you banned or have your content taken down.
Phase one: Some drama on the SomethingAwful forums
Now: The internet becomes a panopticon and puritanism comes back “for the lulz”.
(Yeah yeah, billionaires control everything and all, but that’s not as funny to type out)
