Snapchat’s automated system flagged a private DM to three contacts and triggered an FBI alert in under 60 minutes, ending her teaching career
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
Where does it say her name is Sharon? Why do you think she cares about private messaging?
Hes talking about his fictional or fictionalized coworker “sharon”, who presumably believes privacy is for criminals
Exactly my point
The entire thing is incredibly sexist.
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”
Yea okay buddy thank god you’re offended at my alleged sexism, you just saved half of the world’s population of abused women by being so offended
“private” snapchat.
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😢
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.
That’s why big tech renamed them to direct messages (DM).
One reason why you need to use a proper privacy respecting E2EE messaging e.g. Signal.
Ah yes noted - if one wants to discuss schooting schoolchildren, they should do it on Signal. /s
That’s the point, she wasn’t doing any crime and was punished anyways. You need to protect yourself from tyranny with the proper tools.
Oh cool. “Thought crime”. Great.
By all that is both sacred and profane do not click the link without an ad blocker enabled!
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.
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.
“should I shoot him?” is not a threat.
Also, who made you the judge jury and executioner of Snapchat messages that get you fired from your job?
That’s the AI’s job and I don’t want to see you stealing jobs from hard working AIs.
I don’t think the government should be reading private messages
exactly. someone letting off steam to family or friends is as old as time. heck. bar conversation even.
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.
They shouldn’t, but that’s irrelevant to “should an allegedly private message be preemptively shared with the government?”
They’re not private. Never were. Snapchat was always a lie.
True but in this case the automated system got it right
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?
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.
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.
While I don’t support mass surveillance, this seems to be a case where it was in the right
“I don’t support fascism, but in this case it’s a good thing.”
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…
It was a private message. You’ve never engaged in hyperbole with your friends?
About shooting children? No. Absolutely not.
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.
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”.
Did we just move the goalposts from ‘nobody can make jokes like this’ to ‘police have to investigate since they got a report’?
We didn’t move anything, the statement I made was that they get no sympathy from me.
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.
You dont know any teachers do you?
Of course I do.
Not the people that taught you, i mean friends as an adult.
Does any adult really not know any teachers?
Apparently not you, cause i guarantee that every teacher with experience has had at least one student that turned their humor dark.
While I don’t support mass surveillance I do think it is entirely inappropriate to “joke” about shooting someone.
Good thing you’re not friends with this random person in Illinois.
