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’re right… and I agree with your sentiment in principal.
I’m just a bit frustrated because I’ve been trying to explain to people that online privacy is important and meta, snapchat, google, etc. can’t be trusted for over a decade now. I hope these stories getting out are more successful than me getting that point across.
Nah you’re also right, and I’ve been in your position as well and it’s frustrating.
It truly is.
I upvoted the comments disagreeing with you but couldn’t downvote yours because sometimes I feel the same way even though I don’t think that way. It’s so frustrating that people keep using those platforms. In my country I literally can’t ditch whatsapp because otherwise my family can’t reach me in an emergency. And when they get a new number they just assume I’m going to see it in their instagram post. How many times I only found out someone got a new number after asking who is the unknown number sending me instagram or tiktok links on whatsapp. Doesn’t matter how many times I explain, it just doesn’t fit in their minds the concept of someone not having an account on those platforms.
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.
That’s what annoys me the most with the nothing to hide crowd. You only have nothing to hide until they decide to go after something you have. I’m an LGBT person, I’m always one bad election away from having something to hide that could cost me my life. I see plenty of moralists who do tiny, widespread tactics to circumvent business taxes, and it’s so normalized here that they legit don’t realize they already have something to hide. Like yeah, realistically I wouldn’t expect the government to go after those people any time soon, but how the fuck are you literally breaking the law and literally every one of your customers know and you still think you have nothing to hide? I legit don’t understand those people.