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Student Teacher Sent a Private Snapchat Complaining About Her Workday. An Hour Later, Police Pulled Up to Her School. (www.gadgetreview.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works to c/technology@lemmy.world

518 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.

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[–] Signtist@bookwyr.me 6 points 3 weeks ago (12 children)

The amount of times I said I was going to kill my sister in my life would have gotten me arrested if the government were listening to me. Anyone who knows me knows I love my sister, and would obviously never kill her. Hyperbole is frequently used in all aspects of human communication, and anyone who says it should be grounds for investigation is either lying, or stupidly believes that those in power could ever be trusted with such privileges.

[–] CanIFishHere@lemmy.ca -4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (11 children)

I can relate to that. But that is very different than sharing you want to shoot an unrelated (biological) student or the school.

Would you prefer if all serious threats on social media were ignored?

[–] isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Ah yes, the old, "any act of state surveillance is acceptable as long as it in theory could increase the safety of children by the width of a single electron."

This is what the country that was founded on "give me liberty or give me death" has degenerated into.

[–] CanIFishHere@lemmy.ca -4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm fine with monitoring Snapchat and actioning death threats. Not sure if you caught this part, but its AI that monitors looking for death threats, not humans.

[–] isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

You are advocating for the death of children.

The policies you support will, on net, kill far more children than they save. These inevitably have an extremely high false-positive rates. For every one actual school shooter you catch, you end up ruining the lives of a thousand innocent children. Many of those will have their lives completely disrupted, many dying early deaths of from suicide and drug overdose.

You are are advocating for the death of children.

[–] CanIFishHere@lemmy.ca -2 points 3 weeks ago

That's a stretch. Your conjecture isn't supported by the facts of this story whatsoever.

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