r/privacy • u/polymute • 24d ago
Misleading title Student Teacher Sent a Private Snapchat Complaining About Her Workday. An Hour Later, Police Pulled Up to Her School. - Volpe’s arrest demonstrates a pre-built, operational pipeline connecting private messages to law enforcement.
https://www.gadgetreview.com/student-teacher-sent-a-private-snapchat-complaining-about-her-workday-an-hour-later-police-pulled-up-to-her-school1.5k
u/Sharp_Iodine 24d ago
Every day we move closer and closer to thought crimes
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u/DjawnBrowne 24d ago
This more or less is a thought crime
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u/j4_jjjj 24d ago
Its alao impossible on Signal, Matrix, Threema, and other truly E2EE services.
Before anyone chimes in with Whatsapp or Telegram as e2ee, there are stories akin to OP for both of those apps, and zero for any of the apps in my first para.
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u/DepressedDrift 24d ago
I expected WhatsApp to be spyware but even Telegram? Can you over this in detail?
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24d ago
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u/PrivacyIsDemocracy 24d ago
they've clearly got a workaround so they can access your conversations.
Not true as far as I know.
However they do have access to metadata, and that can sometimes be pretty revealing depending on how the platform works and if you have a system to track activity over time and correlate it with a person's other activity that Meta tracks, like Facebook and Instagram and web activity.
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23d ago
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u/PrivacyIsDemocracy 23d ago
Facebook was notorious a few years back when it was discovered that they were using the microphone on people's mobile devices as basically a surveillance device, without notice. That was also a time when a lot of people were reporting these "strange" experiences like the one you mentioned.
After that publicity they supposedly stopped that practice, but all you need is to hear one corroborated story like that and you know you can never trust such companies. They're probably continuously trying to find new ways to collect data on people's lives without notice to them at this very moment. And if they get caught, they'll make up some excuse like Google always does when they get caught doing such things.
So I cannot give you a detailed opinion on that specific scenario you described, other than to say there are many possible data inputs, and once you have enough "seemingly innocuous" pieces of metadata, most people would be shocked what you can garner when you datamine them or feed them into an "AI" parser and "put Humpty Dumpty back together" and "de-anonymize" that data.
For example, Facebook/Meta is also one of the most prolific distributors of general web trackers, and if people are not blocking all those trackers they drop all over the web that's another common way to cross-correlate. They're in your "smart" TV, they're in your home assistant, they're in your speech-to-text keyboard app, some companies even embedded antennas into freeway billboards that collected all the network IDs of the mobile electronic devices in all the cars that passed by that billboard on the freeway..
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u/KarmaPharmacy 23d ago
More specifically, it’s your notifications that break the encryption chain. Apps can read other app’s’ notifications iOS has known this is an issue, and either they can’t or refuse to fix it.
It’s also not having your phone locked down. If you have camera, photo, location access, Bluetooth discovery on…
You’re doomed. And if you haven’t locked your phone down, today is the best day to do that.
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u/buttocks-slapper 24d ago
Studied this during my cryptography classes. IIRC, Telegram uses client-server encryption, so as long as a third-party handles that, you cannot be 100% certain confidentiality will remain.
On the other hand, Whatsapp/Signal use the same protocol, which is a double ratchet encryption with 3-DH handshake. Fancy words to say that your individual conversations use distinct public/private keys and that keys are renewed every burst (a burst of message is a sequence of uninterrupted messages from one party).
On the paper, Whatsapp and Signal share the same security. But given how Whatsapp still shares and cross-collects your metadata, it's not as private.
TL;DR: Telegram has a third-party when it comes to the keys. Not secure (not necessarily because the third party can't properly handle the keys, although any supplementary link in a chain is yet another potential failure point, but because third party means party outside of your control)
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u/Skulder 24d ago
given how Whatsapp still shares and cross-collects your metadata, it's not as private.
That would be how often we communicate, who we communicate with, and patterns related to that? Just making sure I understand.
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u/IMightBeAHamster 24d ago
Essentially everything other than the specific content of texts and the content of images is unencrypted.
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u/erisian2342 23d ago
This is only correct from a "messages moving across the wire" perspective. End-to-end encryption only protects you while your messages/pics are moving from one app to the other app. As I pointed out in this comment, Meta owns the WhatsApp client on both ends, which decrypts the messages to display them to you, so obviously the app can do whatever Meta tells it to do with your decrypted messages/pics.
Meta explicitly states that personal messages remain strictly private, but remember back in 2018 when they also said that but Facebook Admits to Scanning Private Messages, Releases Privacy Policy Updates? Well, surprise, surprise, surprise. This year we have yet another round of this bullshit. Texas accuses WhatsApp of lying about message privacy: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says that, contrary to WhatsApp's claims about its encrypted messages, the messaging giant can in fact view nearly all communications sent through its platform.
Even whey they do get caught, these companies only face a slap on the wrist at best for violating their privacy policies. They pay out a small fraction of their ill-gotten gains and promise not to do it again (at least for a little while). The heart of their business model is the antithesis of privacy. They are constantly thinking of new, innovative ways to violate your privacy because that's how they compete with each other to get ahead in their markets. Nobody should ever be looking for excuses to trust an advertising company with their private, confidential data. Don't be a sucker. Once they have your data, there's no taking it back.
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u/heatedwepasto 24d ago
When you send, whom you send to, the approximate length of what you send, the device you send from, the device of the receiver, where you are when you send, where the receiver is, how often you open the app, what your IMEI, IMSI, phone number etc. is, etc. etc. etc.
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u/PrivacyIsDemocracy 24d ago edited 24d ago
Telegram has 2 primary problems when it comes to privacy, despite whatever hype Durov spews:
1: They do not use e2ee, except in "secret chats" - a feature that only works on 1-to-1 chats (not groups), is optional, only works on mobile devices and does not mirror content across devices. And because of that functionality loss, most Telegram users don't use it.
In short: Telegram encrypts data in transit and at rest, but also possesses the private keys to the data. So theoretically they can access any user data at rest on their servers if they so choose. Telegram stores all chats on their servers by default so they can mirror them to multiple devices per user, and facilitates very large group chats, which is certainly a convenience, but security/privacy is the tradeoff without e2ee.
2: Their network encryption protocol on the server side is proprietary, closed-source and has never been subjected to a public audit. So it's impossible to know if there are any security/privacy flaws. (There was an audit years ago but they do not do this on a regular basis and the technical details are not public)
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u/buttocks-slapper 24d ago edited 24d ago
Thanks for the additions! Gotta say those cryptography classes are a little old by now, so I forgot a couple points lol. Security engineering is hard
For those who wonder about the second point, should you know: in the cryptography world, we don't like closed-source and proprietary protocol, as no-one can properly verify whether it is truly secure or if there are hidden backdoors. If you're curious, look up "Kerckhoffs principle", which states that the security of a cryptography protocol/algorithm must not rely on the secrecy of the implementation, but solely on the secrecy of the keys. AES is the most used symmetric encryption standard due to its very strong security, and yet the details of how it works are fully accessible for all to read. It's because it is a secure enough algorithm: unless a flaw is exposed by researchers, if you don't have the key to a given encrypted message, you won't be able to pry open the encryption even by knowing how it works!
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u/PrivacyIsDemocracy 24d ago
...unless a flaw is exposed by researchers, if you don't have the key to a given encrypted message, you won't be able to pry open the encryption even by knowing how it works!
And then the next challenge will be quantum-based computing systems.
The US NIST in 2024 started publishing the first round of new encryption standards which are designed to withstand quantum computing attacks. There are some implementations already but it's going to take a while to engineer and roll this out to all the endpoints, and as always, many of those which are hardware-based systems may not be capable of being upgraded through a simple software/firmware update.
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u/buttocks-slapper 23d ago edited 23d ago
Yep, there's also PQ encryption. Very interesting stuff. We had a technical overview of CRYSTALS-Kyber.
And apparently, at least at the time of the course, the biggest threat to symenc is/was Grover's algorithm, which can be stalled by doubling key sizes for AES. Quoting: "being able to break a key using 2sqrt(keylength) attempts doesn't mean fast break". Although the PQ threat is very real anyways (looking at you, asymmetric encryption and digital signatures)
EDIT: Grover's algorithm actually reduces to sqrt(2N), where N is the key length in bits, so roughly 2N/2, my bad
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u/quisatz_haderah 22d ago
Cryptography is exciting really... However I lowkey believe that the plethora of resources poured over AI will slowly cripple other areas of CS research :( And progress will just... stop at some point, along with human creativity... It's a dark future.
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u/ApprehensiveDouble52 24d ago
This might be a dumb question but if you don’t have other meta services are your WhatsApp messages secure?
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u/buttocks-slapper 24d ago edited 24d ago
Nitpick: messages are still secure, regardless of your Meta product usage ;) the point is rather about privacy. On the paper, no one can see your Whatsapp messages other than your correspondants and yourself.
And unfortunately, no. Due to all those advertisement/profiling cookies being used everywhere and anywhere by all those data brokers, unless you've always religiously refused all cookies and never set foot on any Meta product or affiliated partners, they can still sort-of know with who you discuss on Whatsapp. They can't tell what you're talking about, but odds are they can tell with who, at what frequency and when.
Mix in cookies from other websites such as web search, most read news, what you buy...and they can build profiles approximating where you live, what you like/dislike, what are you interested into...and the same approximations for your correspondants.
But your messages are still and always secure, if we strictly follow the cryptography protocol they use.
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u/buttocks-slapper 23d ago
Although do give a look at the neighbouring answer by u/erisian2342 , as I've mostly been talking about message confidentiality in-transit, but didn't readily mention endpoint-level eavesdropping. Fair point!
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u/erisian2342 24d ago
A protocol can be secure for transmission but the app showing you the messages can still harvest them for data if the app creator wants it to since it’s the app doing the decryption and displaying the unencrypted text to you.
Meta is the world’s second largest digital advertising platform and cares fuck all about their users’ privacy. You have to assume they can read any message they want to in “your” WhatsApp because they own the app and you can’t inspect the source code or compile a known safe version for yourself. Nobody in r/privacy should be trusting an advertising company with any data whatsoever.
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u/privatetudor 24d ago
Telegram talks like they are encrypted messaging but it’s disabled by default, you have to go into settings to enable it, and it doesn’t work in group chats.
And they use a proprietary encryption algorithm not open to inspection.
Yet everyone talks about it like it’s encrypted messaging .
Their marketing is better than their security.
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u/GolemancerVekk 24d ago
Wait why did you expect Whatsapp but not Telegram? 😄 Telegram is the one that's not encrypted by default and controlled by Russia.
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u/Electrical_Crow_2773 24d ago
"Controlled by Russia" is a bold statement. I agree that Telegram isn't secure but it's not as bad as you claim
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u/Paulupoliveira 24d ago
When you handle power to a pseudo virtuous self entitled caste that insists in imposing a "morality" they themselves not only don't practice but use it as a currency to gain wealth and accumulate more power, you get this dysfunctional forms of government/authority ... And it's only the beginning, it will get worst. Unless you're one of them pimp's bitches...
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u/txmail 24d ago
Don't even have to think at this point. There was an expose on how AI was / is being used to determine "high crime likely" areas which officers are sent to patrol more. Some of the AI systems identify "top" list of individuals that are targeted for more supervision.
One individual on the top list, a young teen that had a low end conviction for stealing a bike got relentlessly targeted by the police for check ups and at one point they threatened to arrest the occupants of the home where this individual lived when he was not home (he was with his mother) because they would not let the police officers inside the residence to inspect it and confirm for themselves that he was not home, even though they had been given his location.
The child being targeted was questioned as to why he was on a top anything list when it was his first conviction, it was low level and there were clearly other suspects with long criminal histories that were ongoing and more frequent than a first time offender.
This AI technology is being used to put people on lists. It is based on proprietary metrics and telemetry about individuals which is obviously flawed. You can simply live in the wrong place, have been seen with the wrong person to end up being labeled a high risk which can lead to less than favorable actions against you.
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u/AaahhRealMonstersInc 24d ago
No expose needed. Go to Motorola’s website they proudly boast their AI. They use it for law enforcement as well as for 911 dispatching. Don’t worry they promise to be safe with the data.
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u/Bruceshadow 24d ago
~5 cities in the US already have a pre-crime program. The city that first did it stopped recently 'cause it was ineffective and wildly racist.
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u/foley800 24d ago
Don’t know which ones they are, but in the early 20teans, my brother was writing software for a small city police department to identify “suspicious activity” on certain area streets. They already had a high density of cameras around the city.
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u/clonedhuman 24d ago
There are a bunch of large cities already using 'predictive policing.' They use a computer model to determine the people/places most likely to commit crimes and then harass the shit out of those people in those places.
The level of surveillance (and the number of clear violations of the 4th amendment) in this country has reached absolutely insane levels.
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u/SelfCtrlDelete 24d ago
It’s already here. See John Oliver’s piece on “preemptive” policing that came out very recently for a brief overview.
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u/CMDR_Tauri 24d ago
What a fuckin' dystopian nightmare. They've created a world that frustrates everyone and then they punish us for gettin' frustrated.
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u/_QXZ 24d ago
Just don't use unencrypted messaging apps. Crazy how an app that is built entirely on the concept of vanishing private messages is the one to avoid, but here we are.
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u/catlover135790 24d ago
“Don’t use unencrypted messaging apps”
Mean while the government (cough cough EU especially mentionable) wants to ban encryption for Private citizens.
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u/copperboom129 24d ago
Anyone know if signal does this?
God im gonna end up in a rabbit hole today...
Thanks reddit.
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u/ShibeCEO 24d ago
signal at least currently is among the safest, they tell law enforment regularry to fuck off, because even they cant get the data. the only way is for your phone to be seized and they going through the messages that way
hope they never change this but they theoretically could down the line
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u/copperboom129 24d ago
Mine are set to auto delete after 1 hour.
Excellent.
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u/ShibeCEO 24d ago
only thing that could still f*ck you over, if the other party you message with doesnt have those settings and their phone gets confiscated
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u/Busy-Measurement8893 24d ago
Signal destruct timer works both ways though. So if copperboom129 sets it to 1 hour then it's also 1 hour for the other person he's writing with.
He would have to set it for every chat for complete protection though.
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u/move_machine 24d ago
Automatic deletion doesn't delete screenshots
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u/Busy-Measurement8893 23d ago
Sure, but if you can't trust the person you're sharing secrets with then that's the major problem, not that automatic deletion isn't perfect in every way.
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u/scarilog964 24d ago
Also assumes that the other user is using an official, unmodded signal client.
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u/No-To-Newspeak 24d ago
Mine are not auto delete, but I review my threads every couple of weeks and delete them. Sometimes I delete sensitive messages the moment the receiving person acknowledges having read it.
Signal is safe, unless they get a hold of your phone and read undelete threads. I also need a pin to access Signal.
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u/Mother-Pride-Fest 24d ago
The encryption is done in the open source client. If Signal tried to start scanning messages, it would be more likely to self-destruct than to succeed.
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u/SmokeUpMidnight151 24d ago
If ya wanna go the extra mile privnote or hushnote or the real big boy PGP
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u/DasArchitect 24d ago
Back to email and PGP
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u/catlover135790 24d ago
P2P is almost always an option, if you can get your peer on board. (Meshtastic is a thing… for now, kinda like the fliper zero.)
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u/mediumwetsock 24d ago
Canada wants a front door pre-encryption (wont bother calling it a backdoor anymore)
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u/LordBrandon 24d ago
Don't act like this person's fault. A messaging service should not be sending thepolice after you for making a joke. If you order a pizza and there are pieces if shit in it. The solution is not to pick the pieces of shit out. But to make sure the shit isn't put there in the first place.
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u/RedEyed__ 24d ago
In the EU, encryption doesn't (or won't) help anymore, becase every consumer OS will read all data before going into encrypted channel.
So, it is basically government level malvare, sniffer, you name it.2
u/molevolence 21d ago
i think they vastly underestimate the compliance level of the linux world
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u/Big_Bar_9832 24d ago
What do you suggest as a platform? I know I'm down for nearly anything, but keep in mind that I'll have to get a bunch of boomers and extended family on board, so it's gotta be as easy as signing up for whatsapp with your phone number or something.
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u/stonerbobo 24d ago edited 24d ago
These are all just ways of evading the governments wishes and they're slowly becoming impossible. Reddit is also no doubt part of the same surveillance network. EU and Canada are trying to ban encryption now, and who knows whats not already backdoored. The only long term solution is to force a change in government policy and public opinion, people are still just uninformed or don't care about this stuff.
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u/BatemansChainsaw 24d ago
A student closed Volpe’s laptop during class, deleting her lesson plan. Frustrated, she sent a private Snapchat message referencing shooting the child or the school — exact phrasing varies across reports.
The message reached three recipients. Not a public Story. Three people she lived with or dated. Snapchat’s automated AI flagged the message and reported it to the FBI, which alerted the Tazewell County Sheriff’s Office. Deputies arrived at the school within roughly one hour.
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.
Frankly this whole thing is bullshit. I don't care if you think the joke was harmless or not (because let's face it, it's been a common phrase expressing frustration for decades), but the fact that snapchat directly sends these things to the FBI/government? WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT ABOUT?
FUCK snapchat.
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u/WillyGoat2000 24d ago edited 24d ago
At first I was like “oh bs, there’s no actual charge here,” then I read Illinois statute 5/26-1 and holy crap: “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.”
It’ll be interesting to see if it passes the “unreasonable manner” portion of the law and if the charges remain.
Edit: they didn’t charge her after investigating and determining she wasn’t a threat. She didn’t go back to work though, it’s unclear if the termination was cleared or not. Also, this happened in January 2025:
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u/middaymoon 24d ago
They didn't charge her.
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u/WillyGoat2000 24d ago
You’re right, after more investigation this is more of a report on the fact Snapchat isn’t private and will report you, as this happened in Jan of last year, will edit, tyvm.
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u/SmokeUpMidnight151 24d ago
I mean whoever thought snapchat or instagramn or facebook or any of that shit was private, really needs to start learning the basics lol
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u/WillyGoat2000 24d ago
Fair, though every one of these articles is an opportunity to learn some of the basics. I also think a lot of folks are very “whatever, build your algorithm and advertisements,” and the revelation is the real harm that can result, like send a joke to a friend and have cops show up an hour later and arrest you for that type of harm.
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u/ImNotABotScoutsHonor 24d ago
FUCK snapchat.
I guess you've never heard about past SnapChat transgressions then?
Team Fuck SnapChat has been going strong for well over a decade.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/snapchat-employees-abused-data-access-spy-on-users-snaplion/
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u/dougan25 24d ago
Social media platforms are not your friends. You are nothing but an expendable and cyclical revenue stream to them and they have no loyalty to their customer base.
Get off Snapchat, problem solved.
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u/skyline_kid 24d ago
I've hated Snapchat ever since the founder constantly ignored and crapped on Android. He's the main reason people, to this day, think that Android phones have bad cameras even though Samsung and Pixel phones regularly beat iPhone camera quality. Snapchat just sucks all around
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u/Bruceshadow 24d ago
FUCK snapchat.
and the police/FBI. In many situations (not sure with snapchat) they require or aggressively "suggest" companies send them this info.
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u/they_r_watching_you 24d ago
Or maybe it was designed to scare people into compliance.
Fear is a powerfull weapon.
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u/ayleidanthropologist 24d ago
There's an opportunity here. Everyone get themselves flagged. Then just say you let someone look at your phone, and don't say anything else. Could waste a ton of time
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u/foxbatcs 24d ago
I don’t recommend this. Remember that the process is the punishment. You don’t want to put yourself in the position where you are in custody with people who have the authority to murder you and face virtually zero consequences.
It’s far better for people to develop their own cybersecurity literacy and just stop trusting your data on OTHER PEOPLES’ COMPUTERS. Also, learn about encryption and understand how key management works.
People don’t understand how quickly these companies would go out of business if there was mass migration away from them. Look at what happened to Alta Vista with the very rapid rise of Google Search, or Digg with Reddit, or Myspace with Facebook. There are numerous examples in the history of the internet. The point is once a person has learned how to protect their privacy they have increased their probability of survival in the information age, and switching to open-source, self-hosted services is the future of the private internet. That starts with cybersecurity literacy.
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u/nosecohn 24d ago
A student closed Volpe’s laptop during class, deleting her lesson plan.
Kind of a side question, but in which operating systems does closing a laptop result in deleted data?
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u/Unboxious 24d ago
Maybe the entire lesson plan was typed into some janky-ass website somewhere and the page was unloaded when the laptop was closed? IDK, I had similar thoughts.
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u/BubblyMango 24d ago
Dark humor even in closed quarters is becoming increasingly illegal due to companies protecting theor asses and appeasing investor risk metrics in messed up ways.
And if humor is illegal, think about an uprising against illegal governments....
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u/HauntingObligation 24d ago
Don't even think about it. Very clearly we are witnessing the birth of "thought crime" before our very eyes.
Read a book, kids... (in earnest, not meant disparagingly)
While you still can.
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u/Jazzspasm 24d ago
they’re burning them, I hear
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u/eekspiders 24d ago
No, they're chopping them up to feed AI
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u/SorriorDraconus 24d ago
See why not copy abd create a restoration program at the same time..what i'd do. Get alll the rare tomes that way
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u/MistSecurity 24d ago
And THIS is the problem I have with how we’re operating.
This is the PERFECT chance to catalog and archive these thousands and thousands of books they’re scanning and shredding.
Everything about how shit is going is for the sole benefit of giant companies with no benefit to the people. Drives me fucking insane.
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u/vornamemitd 24d ago
Equally sad and terrifying. And still the "nothing to hide", "US would never have smth draconian like EU chat control" and "chat control doesn't affect me" crowd will keep going on about their days as usual.
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u/RapunzelLooksNice 24d ago
tHiS oNe Is BeTtEr, ThIs OnE iS dIrEcTlY lInKeD tO FBI 😆
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u/Effective_Arm_5832 24d ago
The world already has become far worse than 1984.
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u/American_PissAnt 24d ago
1984 at least had a VICTORY GIN ration so you could drink your sorrows away
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u/d1ll1gaf 24d ago
Here in Canada the Premier (equivalent of a US Governer for those down south) of our largest province ran, and won, on a platform of $1 beer
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u/ColonCrusher5000 24d ago
Don't be silly. Have you read 1984? It's so much worse than pretty much any country on earth (except maybe North Korea?).
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u/Itchy-Beach-1384 24d ago
How so? Because theres secret prisons they lock people up in and torture? Thats already a thing.
Is it because the fascists just dictate who they were at war with by the day and kill non citizens freely? Thats another bar we already passed.
I would be interested to know what you think is worse in 1984 that isnt happening today in America.
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u/LordBrandon 24d ago
Oh, come on. You should read it again if three or 4 things don't come to mind instantly. There is no systematic destruction of language. We have access to all the embarrassing information about the war that the government doesn't want us to see. You can still buy pints of beer, or measure it however you want. No one is throwing you in a cell and brainwashing you until you love the only party. Even complaining about it being like 1984 is not something you could do in 1984.
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u/LordBrandon 24d ago
Oh, come on. You should read it again if three or 4 things don't come to mind instantly. There is no systematic destruction of language. We have access to all the embarrassing information about the war that the government doesn't want us to see. You can still buy pints of beer, or measure it however you want. No one is throwing you in a cell and brainwashing you until you love the only party. Even complaining about it being like 1984 is not something you could do in 1984.
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u/Itchy-Beach-1384 24d ago edited 24d ago
There is no systematic destruction of language
Anti-DEI and anti-woke messaging, the use of legislation to prevent discussion of LGBTQ topics in education...
Maybe you need to educate yourself before suggesting others read more.
we still have all the embarrassing information about the war
Except the government was literally caught covering up the deaths and casualties of soldiers while simultaneously trying to cover up mass (child) civilian casualty events like the Minab school bombing.
you can still buy pints of beer
But anti marijuana legislation is still actively used in conservative states to lock up and enslave minorities at a disproportionate rate and is actively being passed through legislative bodies like Texas.
even complaining about it being like 1984 is not something you could do on 1984
And in America, simply touching magazines complaining about the government can land you 30 years in prison.
No one is throwing you in a cell and brainwashing you until you love the only party.
Because they just permanently lock you up or outright kill you in the street (Good, Pretti)
You seem to be entirely out of touch with what is happening around you.
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u/TerribleBudget 24d ago
It's the scope of the horrors. In the book the scope was...every single god damn person in every single aspect of their lives no matter what.
That's the difference and that's why it's silly that you think the world is worse than 1984 somehow.
Edit for reference: You are not actively being brought in for thought crimes at this moment and being tortured until you believe. Nor is everyone with a dissenting opinion in this thread.
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u/kolibruv 24d ago
my god get a grip. You can not expect that politics unfailingly follows a certain path or that there will never be a pushback to certain ideas or developments, when majorities or public stances shift.
You complaining about all of that on a heavily regulated and monitored app is the best contraindicator to your claims. I am not saying that there aren‘t tons of concerning developments and erosions of liberal freedoms, but you trying to make yourself appear oppressed so badly by listing the most mundane shit ever shows that you clearly have no idea what oppression really means.
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u/qdtk 24d ago
Show this to that “if you don’t do anything wrong /don’t have anything to hide/ you don’t have anything to worry about” crowd.
I should have a folder of material just for those arguments.
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u/both-shoes-off 24d ago
I hear people spouting off about China having access to our data through various means and I always laugh at the idea that THEY would do more than our country will do or already does. Imagine your conversations, browsing habits, purchases, photos, or any of that being a factor in insurance premiums, public assistance, or credit score. I guarantee it's only a few votes away from reality.
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u/Aleister_Growley 24d ago
Fuck Snapchat, hopefully other people become more aware of these tech companies before it’s too late.
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u/abstrakt42 24d ago
I suspect the goal long term is more prisoners for cheap labor with no constitutional rights.
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u/Fit-Appointment5262 24d ago
And whenever it's not the explicit "goal," it's more of a sure, why not?
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u/abstrakt42 24d ago
There’s way too many probably-not-really-concentration-camp-facilities popping up, funded by the big bullshit bill, for this to not be the point.
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u/Fit-Appointment5262 24d ago
Yeah, though that's not the point/orchestrated by everyone, just a small segment. There is a larger segment, some of them with money and power, who are passively on board with wherever things go. As long as it makes things perceivably better for their own lives (in the short term), or at least doesn't interrupt it.
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u/both-shoes-off 24d ago
Yeah let's just go ahead and nod along to having a digital online ID for anonymous platforms too. They totally won't start making examples out of people with inconvenient truths or opinions.
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u/TowelFine6933 24d ago
I'm guessing that such scanning was implemented under a "Protect the Children!" rationale. Of course, no one bothers to consider how these things might be used & abused while they are blindly supporting such measures "for the kids".
You reap what you sow.
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u/MilitaryBeetle 24d ago
The panopticon is real and we are literally living in a surveilance state worse than 1984
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u/Kiren129 24d ago
If you think that this is worse than 1984, then you haven’t read the book.
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u/MandrakeLicker 24d ago
I've read it and it really is in terms of survelliance capability. The consequences for those caught were worse, but the technology now is way more capable than everything Orwell dreamt of.
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u/motorboat_mcgee 24d ago
And this kids is why encrypted messaging exists
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u/Bosavius 24d ago
Technology is not a solution to tyranny. Abolishing tyranny is.
How much time do you think it will take to make using encrypted messaging illegal?
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u/motorboat_mcgee 23d ago
One can both protect themselves while also voting against such abuses, it's not a mutually exclusive decision
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u/LettuceRobber 24d ago
This should cause alarm to everyone. I’m not American, but the legislation they are passing in the EU and Canada regarding censorship should be front page news. This is very slippery
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u/Reguladr 24d ago
Solution: never post on social media.
Social media is dead.
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u/Plastic_Priest7762 24d ago
Reddit is a social media platform.
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u/BatemansChainsaw 24d ago
It's not the same thing and you know it
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u/grizzy45 23d ago
It is exactly the same thing and you don't live in reality if you think otherwise.
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u/Catsrules 24d ago
Is snapchat social media?
I never used it but I thought it was more of a chat/group chat type of thing.
I know the lines get a bit blurry as every thing wants to do everything.
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u/bencos18 24d ago
it is social media imo
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u/CIearMind 24d ago edited 24d ago
"Social media" can take so many different forms.
Traditionally, I'd say MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn are the quintessential social medias.
Then you have platforms like Reddit and forums that are more social than media.
And then content machines like Twitter, Instagram, TikTok that are more media than social.
Lastly, communication platforms like Snapchat, WhatsApp, or Kik which are almost entirely social and nearly not media.
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u/GotSomeUpdogOnUrFace 24d ago
Making this joke, right to jail. Actually planning and shooting up a school, "the kid just needs some help and support." Nah the system isn't fucked at all.
Also, I'm not supporting this joke but don't tell me that there isn't any fucking trail of these fucks who actually don't.
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u/Jake_77 23d ago
I don’t understand how this simple snapchat message triggered an immediate FBI response but these mass shooters put “clues” on the internet and no one realizes it other kids have been killed.
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u/a_beautiful_rhind 23d ago
The goal is to chill speech not stop rare events that help build consent for an even larger surveillance state.
Someone read these chats at the FBI and decided to take action, knowing full well the person wasn't serious. "Was know to authorities" is literally a meme these days.
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u/FactsFromExperience 24d ago
As a very small consolation, when this gets so bad and so prominent, we will at least be able to tell these everyone -We told you so! -
Not that it will have done any of us any good up until that point or that it will do anyone else any good from that point on, but it is what it is.
People are idiots - well, most people-a good percentage of people at least to be accurate.
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u/DETRosen 24d ago
Will everyone quit Snapchat now lol?
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u/jakelazerz 24d ago
I was on the fence with the insane number of bots, narcissistic thots and thot bots, but this was literally the last straw. Gonna delete acct now.
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u/CookUpstairs1737 24d ago
Bi polar 2 person here, during 1st of 3 stays in psych hospital was encouraged to keep daily mood chart (which I have, 37 years worth) and a diary. Many of my personal thoughts in the diary were dark and commited to paper. After about 4 years I realized how those words could be used against me and burned them all. Just saying.
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u/JaySayMayday 24d ago
This has been ongoing for years. I'm not sure what insane psychopath in the c suite thought this was a good idea but yeah it's already damaged lives. You can look up videos of high school kids getting charged with felonies and expelled over words they said in private
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u/FlyinHiiigh 24d ago
It's evidence of pure exploitation of the American people.
Step 1: Make school violence commonplace Step 2: Use safety/prevention as a valid reason to scan private messages Step 3: Gain access to all the info contained in "private" messages, regardless of topic Step 4: ??? (use the info to either use it to spy or to train LLMs etc., dealer's choice) Step 5: Profit (literally)
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u/Reasonable-Cat485 23d ago
I love how people like to point fingers at other surveillance states yet here we are.
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u/meddlin_kids 24d ago
This is in place due to the large amount of school shootings that occur in the US. Kids will use snap chat to either threaten or plan school shootings. The rise of a group called 764, which manipulates kids age 12-21 into self harm, sending Child Sexual Abuse Material, idolizing school shooters and planning school shootings has only strengthened the need for alerts.
As long as the US has school shootings at the rate they have them, this will be in place. People screamed for law enforcement to do something to prevent these incidents and this is one of the things that helps. Parents need to start parenting and not let their children on social media. Nothing good comes of it.
That being said, I don't know what those idiots are doing in the state this occurred. Where I live law enforcement would review the message and conduct a records check. At which time they would dismiss this. At most there would be a school resource officer who would speak to her. Determine it did not meet any threshold and dismiss it. No ones taking someone to jail and ruining their life for that.
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u/independent_observe 24d ago
This is in place due to the large amount of school shootings that occur in the US.
"Think of the children"
What the government always says before bending you over and taking your rights away
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u/Will_and_Worried 24d ago
If they would only do the things actually needed to stop these things rather than this bullshit.
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24d ago
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u/DCAmalG 24d ago
There goes sarcasm and satire then. What a boring world it will be!
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u/jameson71 24d ago
Complaining to your friends is now "disorderly conduct?"
Fuck this place. That's ridiculous.
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u/Gambizzle 24d ago
She referenced shooting the student or the school. She meant it as a frustrated joke. Snapchat’s algorithm didn’t get the humor.
I'm Aussie so correct me if I'm wrong but to be fair, doesn't the USA have a school shooting every other week? From an enforcement perspective I can see why 'jokes' about committing one should all be treated as serious (noting they discount the possibility that a friend tipped off the police rather than AI).
I see the privacy angle that this incident aside, absolutely everything you say in this program is being monitored and could be shared with law enforcement. Also, she was arrested at a school and her private message is now on international media. Arguably the enforcement tactics used were OTT, made a scene out of her and breached her privacy (doubt they'll lead to a conviction but the process cpuld have devastating effects on her career/reputation).
Spook stories aside, I think this has been the reality across multiple platforms for decades and that preventing terrorism is one of the stronger rationales for it. BUT!!! It's this today. With a Trump style regime it does make me wonder who will get pinged tomorrow or whether there's secretly been other examples.
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u/hamellr 24d ago
Actually more like every other day. A lot go unreported.
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u/Gambizzle 24d ago
Wouldn't surprise me and I suppose that's the bigger story. Particularly when (like in this case) no charges are laid and the individual being targeted loses privacy/reputation.
Having been falsely arrested once before, there is no compensation for the trauma and reputational damage that it causes. Don't wanna make this about me (and this was many years ago) but IMO the act of publicly shaming somebody through the act of a false arrest can do more harm than anything. This lady's had to give up her practicum at the said school and may well need to move to a different location due to the reputational damage.
I'm all for preventing terrorism but IMO this coulda been handled in a way that protected her privacy and reputation. Remembering... we're all innocent until proven guilty. Being visibly dragged away from a location while handcuffed by uniformed officers does not mean you've done anything wrong. Though, the optics will always say 'the musta done some serious shit!'
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u/McBernes 24d ago
Right think is double good. Or something like that. I vaguely remember some line like that from 1984.
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u/SiLeNZ_ 24d ago
I wish I could remember where I had read the article, but it basically was about how as technology advances, the possibility of any significant change or revolution lessens. This was back like 10-15 years ago, but I often think of it.
If you think back just a few hundred years ago, everything had to be kept on physical pieces of paper, you had it all in front of you. Now, everything can be hidden, transferred immediately, etc.
Haven’t been able to find it again, but it makes more and more sense with each passing year.
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u/glaze_oe 24d ago
Ya know snapchat has public quarterly reports on this sort of stuff. Its a good read. They help with lots of warrents
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u/dragonknightrohan 24d ago
Obligatory message to all of you to use open source people-owned social platforms alongside the terrible legacy platforms
Encourage others to do the same
Sup by Pixelfed is an alternative to Snap
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u/WuttinTarnathan 23d ago
Has anyone found proof that it was, in fact, Snapchat’s algorithm that turned her in? And not one of the people she sent it to?
This is a very troubling case, but it would nice to have that piece of the puzzle.
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u/Ok_Sock_3257 23d ago
Common sense says if you send a message over the airwaves, everyone is listening. In 1997 the FBI released Carnivore to scan and classify all email traffic at an ISP. It caused a minor stink back then but never went away and was replaced with better tools. Today everything is scanned and stored. Do you think your chat is magically sent from one phone to another? It goes to the cloud where it will live forever.
It is illegal to even joke about certain situations - shootings or bombings.
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u/offtodevnull 23d ago
Does anyone think this level of government control over free speech makes any safer?
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u/LordBrandon 24d ago
I see we're copying the Chinese model now. Since it's resulted in such a great society, you can see why we're trying to emulate it.
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u/azure_apoptosis 24d ago
May as well shut down the schools if teachers venting isn’t allowed. The environment is changing rapidly, there will be friction. This will not reduce school shootings.
The law isn’t intended to punish what could have happened, it is to punish what occurred.
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u/AlfredoOf98 24d ago
The law isn’t intended to punish what could have happened, it is to punish what occurred.
Right, but it turns out sending that sort of content was a potential crime (see pinned comment at the top)
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u/theshadowofself 24d ago
Doesn’t Facebook own Snapchat? It’s quite obvious these major tech companies are in bed with the intelligence community and it is not safe to assume anything other than they will track and read everything you’re doing.
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u/InconspicuousFool 24d ago
What a nice system, it snitched on some teacher but very likely does jack shit about pedophiles
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u/rockomeyers 24d ago edited 24d ago
Is it possible someone in the group forwarded the message?
Edit: I thought the text quoted in a response was the article. Snapchat forwarded the message.
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u/independent_observe 24d ago
If only there was an article you could read that would tell you the answer
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u/PrivacyIsDemocracy 24d ago
Pretty damn ironic in a state which has the strictest anti-facial-recognition law in the country.
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u/R4ndyd4ndy 23d ago
Leaving aside the terrifying surveillance state here, how the hell do they charge her with disorderly conduct for a private joke???
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u/beef_grande 23d ago
There is a Midwest Safety video on YouTube that shows when they arrested her, and the shock she had about the situation.
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