this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2026
1018 points (98.5% liked)

Technology

87450 readers
3333 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
L4s@lemmy.world
L3s@hackingne.ws
1018
Student Teacher Sent a Private Snapchat Complaining About Her Workday. An Hour Later, Police Pulled Up to Her School. (www.gadgetreview.com)
submitted 2 weeks ago by spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works to c/technology@lemmy.world
517 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] db_null@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

No formal court charges were filed. Her student-teaching placement was terminated.

It sounds like she will be okay. Possibly needs to move and it sure will be an expensive lesson to learn. I assume she can continue her education elsewhere. I wouldn't have been so harsh if the story were more severe. Of course this doesn't change that in general this is a big issue and vicitm blaming is a bit reckless. I hope this story will make people more mindful of the risks. The way things are going in the US I wouldn't be surprised if the AI also reports Quinceañera to ICE.

I get you 100%, most people don't care and got nothing to hide. I deleted WhatsApp 5-6 years ago, it took a while but everyone important has switched to Signal or Threema eventually. Sometimes I can't contact a company because all they have is WhatsApp support.. it can make some mundane tasks very tiresome.

But regarding my friends, the links to socials have turned into screen recordings (since login is almost always required these days) and that's nice of them, also a good filter, so I really only get the good stuff.