Snapchat’s automated system flagged a private DM to three contacts and triggered an FBI alert in under 60 minutes, ending her teaching career

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[–] 65 points 3 months ago (3 children)

By all that is both sacred and profane do not click the link without an ad blocker enabled!

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  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    The link wouldn’t let me read it with an adblocker enabled. A window took up the screen telling me to disable it.

    Which is why I went to an archive site and read it there.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago

    Use a Javascript blocker, as well.

    I have uBlock Origin and NoScript, together they disabled the ads and the demand to turn off your blocker.

    This is a good thing, though. Anyone so antagonistic to readers needs to be avoided.

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  • [–] 28 points 3 months ago

    And still Snap says they can't stop the snap drug trade..

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  • [–] 54 points 3 months ago (13 children)

    One reason why you need to use a proper privacy respecting E2EE messaging e.g. Signal.

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  • [–] 20 points 3 months ago (9 children)

    Bonus points for one that does not even have your personal information e.g. Session.

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  • [–] 9 points 3 months ago (6 children)

    +1 for session
    also matrix....

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    Add Delta Chat, Briar and Cwtch to that list!

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  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago

    Jamil has entered the chat. P2P with E2EE, so you only ever need some internet connection to stay in touch, no servers to be taken down.

    The only problem is that it'll eat your phone's battery like chrome eats RAM

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  • [–] 19 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    Private message - it isn't private if it can get flagged 😅 .... and seriously, think about everything you have ever said or written, imagine someone taking one of those private sentences out of context... To even think that was a real threat you had to act upon says tons about the country and system, the work- and school environment. Just sad really😢

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago*

    Oh, I don’t have to imagine it. I once got suspended for two weeks after telling my bullies to “drop dead.” Apparently that’s a “threat.” The context of the phrase never came into play, no investigation into why I’d feel compelled to say something like that, because fuck the victims of bullying, right?

    The system has been pouncing on people for snippets of out-of-context phrases for decades. Unfortunately, they rarely catch the people who actually act out their violence.

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  • [–] 18 points 3 months ago

    "private" snapchat.

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  • [–] 35 points 3 months ago (5 children)

    oh but I thought you had nothing to hide Sharon?

    I thought you didn't care about using private messaging?

    I thought you said to me that Signal is used only for creeps and drug dealers that need to hide from the police?

    Well, thank god you're not one of those, I guess...good for you Sharon

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  • [+] -13 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    Where does it say her name is Sharon? Why do you think she cares about private messaging?

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  • [–] 15 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    Hes talking about his fictional or fictionalized coworker "sharon", who presumably believes privacy is for criminals

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  • [+] -7 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    Exactly my point

    The entire thing is incredibly sexist.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago*

    I can't stand the whole Karen thing and would agree with you on the sexism there. But in this case, the article uses "her" and so in the fun little pretend story, using a feminine name makes sense. The same as if the teacher were male you could say, "I thought you had nothing to hide Dave"

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  • [–] 21 points 3 months ago* (10 children)

    What I don't get is how simply closing the laptop deletes anything.

    On every laptop and every OS I used closing the lid just makes it go to sleep and everything is the same when you open it back up again. Never was anything deleted.

    If somebody know a scenario where stuff would be deleted, please explain so that I can avoid it.

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  • [–] 21 points 3 months ago (8 children)

    You can set the lid-close trigger to do nothing, suspend, hibernate, or shut down. I'm assuming it was an unsaved document and the lid was set to shutdown on close.

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  • [–] 29 points 3 months ago

    Oh cool. "Thought crime". Great.

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  • [–] 35 points 3 months ago (15 children)

    she sent a private Snapchat message referencing shooting the child or the school

    Yeah talking about committing a school shooting is going to get you flagged.

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  • [–] 67 points 3 months ago (10 children)

    I don't think the government should be reading private messages

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  • [–] 36 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    exactly. someone letting off steam to family or friends is as old as time. heck. bar conversation even.

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  • [+] -25 points 3 months ago* (3 children)

    I don't think teachers should joke about shooting a student...

    Such behavior leads me to believe that this individual has a strong tendency to act on their emotions which is a very bad trait for someone working with children. If nothing else it shows that they have poor judgememt.

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  • [+] -14 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    True but in this case the automated system got it right

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    Did they? Was this a genuine threat to student safety?

    And even if they did get it right, how much privacy is worth giving up? How much would you like your speech chilled?

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  • [–] -2 points 3 months ago* (1 child)

    If a student teacher sent something like that to me I would almost certainly turn them for the safety of all involved. "Jokes" about violence is often times a sign of poor mental health.

    Just to be clear I don't support mass surveillance. However, I also can't condone violence or threats of violence especially against children.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago

    It almost certainly was not a sincere threat of violence. No one is asking you to condone threats of violence against children. You can narc on your friends all you like, but that's a separate discussion.

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    [+] -9 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    While I don't support mass surveillance I do think it is entirely inappropriate to "joke" about shooting someone.

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  • [+] -23 points 3 months ago (30 children)

    A student had walked up to her laptop and deleted her lesson plan mid-class. frustrated, she typed something like "should I shoot him" with a gun emoji.

    Yeah not getting any sympathy from me on that one...

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  • [–] 35 points 3 months ago (29 children)

    It was a private message. You've never engaged in hyperbole with your friends?

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  • [+] -15 points 3 months ago (28 children)

    About shooting children? No. Absolutely not.

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  • [–] 33 points 3 months ago* (18 children)

    Somebody report Bill Watterson for threatening children.

    Seriously, I've never met an involved parent (or any other child caretaker) who didn't admit to moments of hyperbole like this, even if only internally. You're just being a judgemental prick.

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  • [–] 16 points 3 months ago

    ugh. I have met people like this before. I mentioned once to someone. You know when you are so angry you could literally kill em. They responded no never. no one should. Im like. Im talking for a brief second you are seeing red. still they deny. I just dropped it but like would not trust anything coming from that person to be truth.

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  • [+] -13 points 3 months ago* (16 children)

    That's not a threat, it's a public comic. I'm not judging anyone, but you have to look at it from the POV of law enforcement. If they saw a comment like this and did nothing, and something actually happened, they'd be absolutely crucified for "ignoring red flags".

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  • [–] 11 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    I think the thing here is why are they being contacted about a private message. If anything only those party to it should possibly report it. It stands as it does as a cautionary tale about using any service like this because private conversations should not be looked at in a public announcement kind of way.

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  • [+] -7 points 3 months ago* (1 child)

    I think the thing here is why are they being contacted about a private message

    Because WhatsApp scans messages for when "imminent harm exists".

    If anything only those party to it should possibly report it

    That's not how Snapchat works.

    It stands as it does as a cautionary tale about using any service like this

    Absolutely.

    because private conversations should not be looked at in a public announcement kind of way

    It wasn't a "public announcement", it was forwarded to law enforcement.

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  • [–] 9 points 3 months ago (9 children)

    Did we just move the goalposts from 'nobody can make jokes like this' to 'police have to investigate since they got a report'?

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  • [+] -10 points 3 months ago (8 children)

    We didn't move anything, the statement I made was that they get no sympathy from me.

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  • [–] 9 points 3 months ago (7 children)

    The implication there of course being that she's in the wrong, hence why she doesn't deserve any sympathy for having her life destroyed over a dark joke.

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  • [+] -6 points 3 months ago (6 children)

    The implication there of course being that she’s in the wrong

    Because she is.

    having her life destroyed over a dark joke

    Volpe was arrested for disorderly conduct, held overnight at Tazewell County Jail, and released on $0 bond under Illinois’s SAFE-T Act. No formal court charges were filed. Her student-teaching placement was terminated.

    That's a long long way from "having her life destroyed".

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  • [–] 11 points 3 months ago (5 children)

    So we're back to 'nobody can make jokes like this'.

    That's a long long way from "having her life destroyed".

    She's lost her job, and will never be able to get back into teaching. The publicity will probably make it difficult for her to get any sort of good position in future. Most people would certainly feel that way.

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  • [+] -7 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    So we’re back to ’nobody can make jokes like this’.

    Repeating the same nonsense over and over doesn't make it any more true.

    She’s lost her job

    As she should.

    and will never be able to get back into teaching

    That's up to schools to decide. If they decide they don't want someone on their staff that thinks it's okay to joke about murdering children, that's their prerogative. No one is doing that to her, she did that to herself.

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  • [–] 8 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    You've said that she's in the wrong. How does that not translate to 'nobody can make jokes like this', would you kindly like to explain?

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  • [+] -6 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    It shouldn't be controversial that adults shouldn't make jokes about murdering children, I don't understand why this needs to be explained.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    Okay now I get it, at first I thought you were being serious but then I realized you were joking with the law enforcement getting crucified comment. You'd have to be literally brain dead to think something that stupid.

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  • [–] 15 points 3 months ago (8 children)

    You dont know any teachers do you?

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  • [+] -11 points 3 months ago (7 children)
  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago (6 children)

    Not the people that taught you, i mean friends as an adult.

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  • [+] -13 points 3 months ago (5 children)

    Does any adult really not know any teachers?

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  • [–] 7 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    Apparently not you, cause i guarantee that every teacher with experience has had at least one student that turned their humor dark.

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  • [+] -6 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    No, as I said previously, I know lots of teachers. I have one in my immediate family. You can keep insisting for some weird reason that I don't, but it's not a good look, because you don't know anything about me.

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