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.
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.
The idea that mass violence, which happens very rarely all things considered, justifies constant mass surveillance and automated reaction is very troubling. The new “think of the children,” I suppose.
In fact, we also have countries with less surveillance and less mass violence. And that’s most countries these days. There’s been only one single school shooting ever in my country and I actually knew people at that school at the time (my ex had graduated from there, but her cousin was still attending). 8th or 9th grade boy with a strict military father was being bullied by a teacher so he shot the teacher. That teacher would give him bad grades knowing his father would punish him for it (someone said he’d have to run 20 km home from school if he got a bad grade, but I’m not sure if that’s true), mocked him apparently, etc. Not trying to justify the kid’s actions, just illustrating what it took to get someone in a country other than the US to even go that far. He didn’t announce his plans to his friends beforehand AFAIK, so surveillance wouldn’t even have caught it.
Where I live there is little to no mass surveillance, and the only “shootings” in schools are the high school students shooting alcohol hidden from the teachers.
We do have crime, like every other country, but by population count, it’s not that bad.
There are cameras in most key intersection in major cities, and they are monitored by the emergency services, but no plate readers or face recognition whatsoever.
but no plate readers or face recognition whatsoever.
we promise
No, we know. My wife used to manage a shift of the emergency services, and they just don’t have the funds. Not happening for another 4 to 8 years.
If she was in a bar and she was venting to her friends about shooting students or shooting up a school and the bartender heard her and contacted the police, would you call it an invasion of privacy?
The real story is that people consider unencrypted messages on Snapchat “private”.
shouts death threat in public forum
“THEY CANT TAKE MUH FREEDUMMMM!”
You should fucking die if you think like that, or you may be the next fucking Hitler :3
My guess is most are very young. Goes to show our civil liberties worldwide, especially since 9/11, have eroded tremendously. Young people have grown up in a world where privacy is a joke and government spying is a foregone conclusion.
I work mostly with people older than myself. The younger ones are shocked by everyone’s lackadaisical privacy practices. The older ones all say, “oh well, it’s everywhere and I have nothing to hide. It’s not like you can get away from it.”
I don’t know a single young person who actually cares about Internet privacy. The vast majority of them are on social media all the time.
I believe there are a few things you simply shouldn’t joke about. Killing children is one of those things. But yes, everybody has a fundamental right to their privacy and it’s insane that mass surveillance is becoming more and more common and way too many people seem to just accept or ignore it.
I believe there are a few things you simply shouldn’t joke about
And I believe that belief makes you a dangerous idiot who’ll happily support Fascism.
closed her laptop mid-class and wiped her lesson plan
So what awful setup was she running where the laptop doesn’t just sleep on lid close, and the document isn’t still there on wake? Who prepares a document to work from that isn’t saved?
The rest is some 1984 bullshit, but I’m wondering what the hell is wrong with that laptop.
So the lesson to the rest of us is DO NOT USE SNAPCHAT especially for private messaging.
I use Signal, was pressed to do so by privacy-minded friends and have pressed other friends to adopt the client.
So long as you don’t accidentally include Jeffrey Goldberg in your chat, you’re okay.
Wrong lesson. All the ways to track you combined don’t leave you an outlet.
Signal is fine to make you feel better.
It’s a social problem that should be solved by social, not technical, means. Awareness, law, burning tires.
EDIT: for moral clarity’s sake - I live in Russia, I’m not spreading awareness mostly, I’m not trying to change any law and sure as hell I’m not burning tires ; but if you live in a democratic country with courts and presumption of innocence until proven guilty yadda-yadda, you might try those
I live in the United States. Crime is not about behavior or adherence to law, but who we are. Those of us who cannot afford lawyers will be framed by law enforcement or coerced into confession, or extorted into a plea deal.
And laws are not passed that better serve the public, but are based on ideology or corporate interest.
So we’re not a liberal, democratic society with rule of law.
In your society you can openly protest against people calling the shots, or be rude to cops, and not expect legal (and physical) retribution. There are places where this is unthinkable.
And laws are not passed that better serve the public, but are based on ideology or corporate interest.
Yes, that’s because the public has ideologies and corporate interests, and no common idea of what it means “to serve the public”.
In your society you can openly protest against people calling the shots, or be rude to cops, and not expect legal (and physical) retribution
You are obviously not watching the dozens of phone videos displaying counterexamples to this statement.
Granted, it’s true for a shrinking privileged set, and the US saw for the first time in the 2014 Ferguson Unrest, just how brutal and militant the police will get if protests or rudeness to officers occur in a minority neighborhood. It’s not that police brutality wasn’t common before, but this time there were press on the ground streaming live video to the internet, and it wasn’t being filtered through news agencies.
Conservative protests get the light touch, such as the 2017 Unite the Right rally. In contrast, the George Floyd protests in 2020 were saturated with CS gas just like Ferguson in 2014.
Granted, protestors taken to court by the current regime are usually acquitted (if a grand jury succeeds in indicting them; they’re failing a lot), but then we’re now seeing protestors accused of being part of an Antifa terrorist conspiracy, and getting sentenced disproportionately for minor crimes.
Americans presume they have civil rights, as per those enumerated in the Constitution of the United States, but they’re legally being stripped away by federal courts, and law enforcement (and regime-loyal paramilitaries like ICE) are disregarding those rights more and more without accountability.
Even birthright citizenship is being challenged, and that face-eating leopard is going to take a lot of Americans by surprise.
The US is failing as a liberal society.
When I say “in your society you can”, I don’t mean there won’t be pain. I mean it’s socially acceptable.
Some people live in societies with a significant portion of the population just blanket hating you (I mean, me and people of my views, for example) and thinking you (again, me) shouldn’t exist, because their TV tells them that and they are used to thinking that it’s moral and honest to believe what their TV says. There are people in Russia who think that voting for someone other than currently ruling party’s candidate in presidential and other elections is morally treason. You don’t even feel how far really degraded societies are from yours. There are literally people thinking that even doing what even Putin still allows them to do is treason.
There are political quasi-religions postulating that living and letting live, and also peacefully facing those you don’t agree with, and accepting that robbing others is bad, and accepting that some things are just not your business, - that all these things are impossible heresy and should be killed with fire.
Americans presume they have civil rights, as per those enumerated in the Constitution of the United States, but they’re legally being stripped away by federal courts, and law enforcement (and regime-loyal paramilitaries like ICE) are disregarding those rights more and more without accountability.
And that’s a level above not presuming any civil rights. And that is a level above thinking that even talking about such is weird and not normal.
And even deeper there’s preemptive obedience, where even asking someone expecting obedience from you to express that demand before you follow it is considered disobedience and you only have yourself to blame.
After that there’s worse, like today’s jihadi Syria or emirate Afghanistan or some village in India.
There are many levels, yours is mostly envied.
Is it legal for a service to be called private when it is programmatically shared with law enforcement?
I’d had so many police visits in my teenage years in the 90s and early 00s if there were this level of automated surveillance.
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.
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.
And in any other country that may have been correctly classed as a joke, but in the US it ain’t a joke. What a dystopia
That this is technologically possible at all should terrify you.
The statute is constructed in an unusual way because it doesn’t require that the threat is transmitted to someone who believes it. It says:
(a) A person commits disorderly conduct when he or she knowingly:
…
(3.5) Transmits or causes to be transmitted in any manner a threat of destruction of a school building or school property, or a threat of violence, death, or bodily harm directed against persons at a school, school function, or school event, whether or not school is in session;
Laws against transmitting threats are usually written in a manner that excludes jokes sent to friends who understand that they are jokes.
Also, use Signal. Signal will not call the cops when you send dumb jokes to your friends. There are no good reasons for most people to not use Signal.
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
You’re so unique and smart.
How dare you! I’m nominating you for the Tesseract ban list, where you belong, with the other freaks and scum of Lemmy.
Fine. Have it your way. You’re so common and dumb.
How could you say such a thing to me?
From this day forward, the Internet will know the truth of how vile MyVeryRealName is.
Do you want to be called unique and smart or common and dumb? Make up your mind.
I want to be called both.
I am so tired of alpha male bullying by random garbage. Can’t you just go on a poorly designed submarine with your alpha bro kind to show off your superiority and let nature take it’s course?
You’re so unique and smart but also common and dumb. Happy?
You’d all screech if it wasn’t flagged and someone got shot 🤷♂️
Fucked if you do, fucked if you don’t.
Just a thought, maybe have the common sense to not joke about bombs in the TSA line at the airport?
This is not about the TSA line, this is a chat that most people would presume to be private
Idk if we’d be so angry if the system stopped an angry student from committing an actual shooting. Sounds like the system would have correctly notified authorities and alerted to an actual threat of one occured.
A teacher should know the sensitivity of such a statement, joke or not. Some things you don’t joke about.
At the end of the day, tools like these are helpful when used in their intended way, but are rife with potential for misuse.
Man that was a stupid thing to joke about on a service like Snapchat
That’s a stupid thing to say about a child in any context on any platform. Even in jest, keep that shit tucked away in your head.
Yeah can’t wait until you say something in frustration and get hauled away for it. People supporting this bullshit are the only people who deserve to have it happen to them, and as long as we’re going down the fascism hellslide anyway I’m gonna take some satisfaction in seeing the people who supported the Leopards come to the horrific realization about exactly whose faces were on the menu.
I’m in support of making sure my kids are safe. When someone says something like this, even in frustration, I don’t know if they intend to act on it. I’d rather everyone be safe.
It was absolutely stupid of this teacher to fuck up like this.
But I’d rather the police show up and check on her than have yet another school of bloodied, dead kids.
But you do you.
Safe from what? A joke?
But I’d rather the police show up and check on her than have yet another school of bloodied, dead kids.
Has there been any case like this? Or are you just pulling something out of nothing?
So there has to be a case like this for you to think hmmm maybe we should be cautious?
Wow.
well you better watch out for the boogieman
I’d rather everyone be safe.
Everyone except anyone who’s made a joke you personally find distasteful, apparently.
When the thought police come for you, I hope no one lifts a finger.
Jokes are funny.
This, wasn’t a joke. Maybe it was frustration. But it wasn’t a joke.
Funny is subjective.
This was a joke, and so is your bullshit attempt to justify punishing thoughtcrime.
Only thing less “funny” than this “joke” is the fact that people like you think it’s okay.
There is NO context in which this would be “funny”.
I am a teacher who finished his student teaching the past school year in the Chicagoland area.
I just want to say…the FUCK? This woman was pissed because a student closed her laptop? She claims it “wiped” her lesson plan? No. I’m calling baloney on that story. Her stuff was saved in a cloud environment and would’ve been recovered easily or the OS would’ve saved the working doc.
If this student teacher was frustrated over this extremely small thing, and made a comment like that even “joking” then she is not cut out to be a teacher. At. All. This incident also just killed her career. No school will hire her with this story out there. What a moronic thing to do/say!
The tech issue of flagging this is just a whole other issue though and a good reminder to be careful of context because we are being monitored even when seemingly not.
I’d like to shoot myself after reading this stupid comment. Should I go ahead and start baking cookies for the agents. I wonder if they want coffee?
Everyone is unhinged. Get a grip.
I’m sorry, but what? I’m a dad to a teen and a new teacher as well, so I have experience in this area.
Everyone is unhinged. Get a grip.
You really don’t understand the profession of teaching if that’s your takeaway of what I said. We all get frustrated with students, but to plainly say “shoot” them, while in a literal school and over social media because a student closed your laptop?
A student teacher shouldn’t be this frustrated at this point in their career or they should consider a different career. Kids do this stuff all the time, especially to each other. Open the laptop, boot up, recover the documents/projects. It’s really not a big deal that warrants a comment about shooting a kid, even as a joke.
If you really feel that is acceptable, then thank you for not teaching kids.
No.
If you think there’s anything acceptable about arresting someone and nuking their career over a joke made in a private forum, you are the one with no business being anywhere near kids. You won’t teach them anything except how to be good subservient little serfs for their corporate masters, and that’s the last thing any kid needs to hear more of.
Please consider another career. I hear the military is a great place for bootlickers. And with your contempt for freedom and privacy you’d probably make a great cop.
You’re going on about bootlickers when the entire point of my post was about teachers should not be making any comments, whatsoever, about shooting a kid.
I can’t believe how wrong some of you Lemmy people are about this whole thing and the critical thinking you all are applying. I’m not even talking about the legality or morality of the tech of it, but rather on this person’s demeanor in a demanding profession with 20-25 different personalities and needs who will test you.
By the way, do you need a hug? 🤗
You’re going on about bootlickers
If it bothers you so much maybe stop deepthroating that boot for a minute so we can talk.
the entire point of my post was about teachers should not be making any comments, whatsoever, about shooting a kid.
The entire point of your post was that thoughtcrime is totally valid and should be punishable with state violence and enforced poverty. That makes you a useful idiot for fascism and just a generic idiot for everyone else.
can’t believe how wrong some of you Lemmy people are about this whole thing and the critical thinking you all are applying
Maybe you should try some critical thinking of your own then, and realize that thoughtcrime is never a valid concept.
A teacher joking about shooting a student is no more horrible, nor any less likely than an ER doc joking about motorcyclists being “walking organ donors”. Cops showing up because an AI ratted out a joke someone made in private is 1000 times more horrific and dangerous than someone making a joke you think is over the line.
By the way, do you need a hug?
No, I need a world where “but it’s to protect kids!” doesn’t automatically make most people just happily accept any idiocy the speaker wants to assert.
Neither do you apparently
I work in it, as well as the state in which this happened. Do you?
There is literally no acceptable reason for a teacher to make a comment about shooting a kid. Ever.
And who are you? Why do you get to make that decision?
I’m a teacher, in Illinois, where this story is happening, who has gone through the trainings and a Master’s in education. You think there is an instance to talk about shooting a kid?
It’s pretty damn explicit, in everything we do, that we are there for the kids and to protect them. Even if you’re frustrated—a comment like that is warranted? Seriously?
Nice user name btw… 🙄
Just making sure you werent the secret police and had no actual power to enforce what is and isn’t an appropriate joke to make in private between your partner or friends.
You think there is an instance to talk about shooting a kid?
Yeah, when you’re venting your frustrations about the little shit in private.
Nice user name btw… 🙄
Thanks for noticing 🥰
