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.

  • treadful@lemmy.zip
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    20 days ago

    The amount of people in this thread that seem to think invasion of privacy is cool to police thought crime is honestly shocking. The subject and subject matter are completely irrelevant.

    In addition, teachers are fucking people and venting and joking in private with close friends is sacrosanct.

    • theherk@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      My guess is most are very young. Goes to show our civil liberties worldwide, especially since 9/11, have eroded tremendously. Young people have grown up in a world where privacy is a joke and government spying is a foregone conclusion.

      • fartographer@lemmy.world
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        19 days ago

        I work mostly with people older than myself. The younger ones are shocked by everyone’s lackadaisical privacy practices. The older ones all say, “oh well, it’s everywhere and I have nothing to hide. It’s not like you can get away from it.”

        • theherk@lemmy.world
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          19 days ago

          To clarify, I’m not saying any demographic is above poor privacy concerns. But there is a subtle difference between laziness / difficulty understanding how to mitigate the threat and the believe that it isn’t a threat but an okay behavior, however subtle that difference is. I don’t want to sound like an old man tilting at windmills and blaming things on the youth. I actually think it is a problem that they are just suffering, not responsible for.

    • TheLegendaryAssholeOfJushinLiger@sh.itjust.works
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      The idea that mass violence, which happens very rarely all things considered, justifies constant mass surveillance and automated reaction is very troubling. The new “think of the children,” I suppose.

      • boonhet@sopuli.xyz
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        20 days ago

        In fact, we also have countries with less surveillance and less mass violence. And that’s most countries these days. There’s been only one single school shooting ever in my country and I actually knew people at that school at the time (my ex had graduated from there, but her cousin was still attending). 8th or 9th grade boy with a strict military father was being bullied by a teacher so he shot the teacher. That teacher would give him bad grades knowing his father would punish him for it (someone said he’d have to run 20 km home from school if he got a bad grade, but I’m not sure if that’s true), mocked him apparently, etc. Not trying to justify the kid’s actions, just illustrating what it took to get someone in a country other than the US to even go that far. He didn’t announce his plans to his friends beforehand AFAIK, so surveillance wouldn’t even have caught it.

        • youmaynotknow@lemmy.zip
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          20 days ago

          Where I live there is little to no mass surveillance, and the only “shootings” in schools are the high school students shooting alcohol hidden from the teachers.

          We do have crime, like every other country, but by population count, it’s not that bad.

          There are cameras in most key intersection in major cities, and they are monitored by the emergency services, but no plate readers or face recognition whatsoever.

      • postcapitalism@lemmy.today
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        19 days ago

        Mass violence that the US as a society endorses by doing nothing to address the root causes of gun access and lack of mental health treatments.

        It’s as if they can create the conditions for mass repression and then justify any action.

        Ironically the far-right was worried about this 40+ years ago with the “FEMA Camps” narrative - right up until ICE started rounding up citizens and US residents alike in the exact facial fashion described

        I am dripping in the irony

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      Dark humour is half of what keeps people going in Jobs where the situation is dire. You have to let it out somehow, if you just let it bottle up you’ll explode and won’t be able to do the job anymore.

    • TrackinDaKraken@lemmy.world
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      I take solace in this is the top comment, at least.

      It’s frightening that many people are fine with this sort of invasion of privacy as long as the reason is “good enough”. This is a knee-jerk, uneducated response that only makes sense to the ignorant. I also expect they’re young, and spent more time looking at their phone than paying attention in class.

    • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
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      I think of it the way the ACLU thinks about defending racists: it’s totally irrelevant whether or not the joke is fucked up.

      The US has worked itself into a horrible situation whereby the protection of the second amendment comes at the cost of all other rights for citizens. Trying to do this without coming out and saying so results in an enmeshment of industry and government that would make Mussolini proud.

      I can theoretically understand why terrified parents who can’t think of any other way to protect their children might want this, but that doesn’t make it acceptable. They’re selling everyone out for the appearance of temporary protection from the real problem.

    • Tekdeb@lemmy.zip
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      I believe there are a few things you simply shouldn’t joke about. Killing children is one of those things. But yes, everybody has a fundamental right to their privacy and it’s insane that mass surveillance is becoming more and more common and way too many people seem to just accept or ignore it.

      • DudleyMason@lemmy.ml
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        19 days ago

        I believe there are a few things you simply shouldn’t joke about

        And I believe that belief makes you a dangerous idiot who’ll happily support Fascism.

        • Tekdeb@lemmy.zip
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          19 days ago

          Me thinking that joking about killing kids isn’t ok makes me a fascist? I don’t quite understand how you got to that conclusion, but ok.

          To be clear, I didn’t say people can’t say what they want to. I think that freedom of speech is incredibly important. It’s none of my business what you choose to say if I’m not involved, but I would not be comfortable joking around with such a serious topic. If you are, then more power to you I guess?

          The relevant part of my reply was about mass surveillance being bad, and I don’t think that’s a very hot take. What I think about certain dark joke topics doesn’t matter.

        • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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          19 days ago

          Any restriction on your freedom to say offensive shit must be fascism, right?

          Couldn’t you just fuck-off into the woods and enjoy all your freedoms alone?

          • DudleyMason@lemmy.ml
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            Any restriction on your freedom to say offensive shit must be fascism, right?

            Not what I said. But any restriction that leads to law enforcement intervention without a person complaining damn sure is.

            Couldn’t you just fuck-off into the woods and enjoy all your freedoms alone?

            No, and fuck you for asking. If I have to share the planet with a bunch of copsucking shitbags who believe in thoughtcrime for dead baby jokes but people saying the most horrifically racist, sexist, or homophobic bullshit is just the price of free speech, you can suck it up and deal with there being people out there who can tell the difference between “popular” and “right”.

      • treadful@lemmy.zip
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        19 days ago

        I believe there are a few things you simply shouldn’t joke about. Killing children is one of those things.

        I don’t think we could be friends. Not because I have a need to make jokes about killing kids, but because I don’t want to spend the whole time worrying about how you’ll take a joke.

        • Tekdeb@lemmy.zip
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          19 days ago

          That’s fine. I think we’d get along fine if you don’t make a habit of joking about killing kids, slavery, rape or animal abuse. If you think that makes me too sensitive then I’m happy to stay away.

    • criss_cross@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      I’m reminded a lot of the therapist rule when dealing with suicidal people (Ive had thoughts myself and others in my life so I’ve had enough discussions around this).

      Mentioning suicidal ideation usually isn’t enough to warrant a call. What will is when you start planning. If you get into details of how and who you’re contacting.

      Here too she just mentioned it off hand and didn’t mention having a plan to go do anything. Seems excessive to do a call on that and really into “thought crime” territory.

    • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      19 days ago

      People (I suspect most if not all Americans) are unironically cheering for an automated version of what the Stasi did.

    • M137@lemmy.today
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      Is my brain just not working or does that first sentence make no sense?

      “that seem to think invasion of privacy is cool to police thought crime”

      What? (I’m not disagreeing with you, based on the rest and what I think you’re saying, just to be clear)

      • treadful@lemmy.zip
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        19 days ago

        I can try and rephrase: It’s shocking to me how many people support invasions of privacy for the purposes of detecting and prosecuting ideas and thoughts.

    • terabyterex@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      my knee jerk reaction was thinking the same as you but this very paticular case, i am not sure. i havent made up my mind.

      lets talk about opposite ends and then talk about snapchat

      1. if a person is sitting in mcdonalds saying they want to shoot up a school, we wouldnt think it weird if someone called the authorities. in fact peoples lives have been saved because someone overheard something

      2. in contrast, a private conversation on signal should never be read and everyone should stop using it if it is read.

      now snap chat is neither a public place or an encrypted communication app. it falls in between. it is a social media app. would you be worried if it was facebook? i keep thinking about it. why shouldnt snapchat report it? keep on mind that i have never used snapchat, facebook, or instagram and i thought snapchat was basically for sending pictures. (i am older). but, honest question, why would people expect privacy on snapchat? again, i havent used it and not as “hip”, so i am genuinely asking and this isnt a loaded question

    • joe@lemmy.world
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      If she was in a bar and she was venting to her friends about shooting students or shooting up a school and the bartender heard her and contacted the police, would you call it an invasion of privacy?

      The real story is that people consider unencrypted messages on Snapchat “private”.

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    This warrantless mass surveillance technology chain can also easily be used to silence dissent, chill speech, and oppress by race, religion, gender, sexuality, pregnancy status, and any other status so deemed problematic by those with state power. This is not a power delegated to the government by the constitution, and it was not built to protect the people.

    We accept impositions on our liberty for the protection of the general welfare. Did this actually protect us?

    • Cherry@piefed.social
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      20 days ago

      I know right. The kinda events that they said this was to protect from rarely occur. When you look back they spruiked the word terror and extremist, over and over to get acceptance and now…well now almost everyone fits in that category if your language or moderate actions are not in flavour.

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      It was a power pretty heavily implied not to belong to the government. And given thet the 9th says that rights exist beyond those explicitly stated, it should be pretty clear.

      Anyways we must make the implied right to privacy explicit

      • joe@lemmy.world
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        19 days ago

        we must make the implied right to privacy explicit

        I would be interested in reading more about how you imagine this might work.

        To be up front, I don’t consider unencrypted messages on someone else’s server to be “private” at all; Snapchat can obviously see everything anyone sends unencrypted on their app. So, that’s where I’m starting from.

        • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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          19 days ago

          In this case it pertains to how the app spent years cultivating an atmosphere indicating discretion. That’s why last time I thought about it (a decade ago) it was mostly popular for sending nudes.

          My position here is that the government has been pressuring private companies to give them all the warrantless data they want. And I think they shouldn’t be allowed to ask. Hell I think they should need a warrant to view surveillance data unless someone in the incident consents or the owner of the data is the accuser.

          Now I acknowledge that those two paragraphs allow this situation. But I also think that we shouldn’t be holding a reasonable expectation of privacy to what a privacy advocate thinks, it should be what an ordinary citizen and user of a service thinks. In that case, either I’m old and out of touch since my sending tit pics over Snapchat days are long past (I am) and this woman had an atypical expectation of privacy. Or Snapchat isn’t properly expressing to users the degree of surveillance they’re under and this should be taken as private communication and Snapchat should be forced to either change their surveillance levels or work to ensure that the average user understands the level of surveillance they’re under.

          So yeah I think this is mostly a consumer rights issue, but it’s also an issue of the government keeps asking for data on private citizens that they shouldn’t be allowed to collect themselves and I don’t think they should even be allowed to ask

          • joe@lemmy.world
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            19 days ago

            If the government asks, they typically need a warrant. (There are exceptions, but they’re fairly narrow). Is there a specific example you’re thinking of?

            This scenario, though, is Snapchat volunteering the information. It wouldn’t really make much sense to require the government to get a warrant to recieve a tip, would it?

            And shouldn’t we applaud the practice? Sure, in this scenario it was a false positive, but if this student teacher were actually planning to do what she joked about and Snapchat sat on that information, I suspect many of the people poohpoohing Snapchat would be angry that they didn’t inform law enforcement.

            I have no idea why people are using Snapchat in 2026; it was never as private or discreet as it pretended to be, as you could just take a picture of the “self deleting” message with another device. However, it sounds like people still using it need to demand E2EE direct messages. It worked for Facebook.

  • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world
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    Now that you know everything on Snapchat is going through active automated filtering, consider what Snapchat has chosen NOT to flag and is allowing to flow freely, like sex trafficking and the sale of minors.

    As unfair and life-changing as this event has been for this young teacher, I think the actual story of what Snapchat (and every other digital communication method) is reading/tracking yet allowing is a much, much bigger story. And dirtier. With billionaires and pedophiles and all manner of nasty allowables we do not yet know.

    • ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      This will ve the biggest shock to society when people discover what has been known. The only reason people are not blackmailed into compliance and slavery yet is because they have not destabilized the gov enough to get away with it.

      Think if they had to explain how they know the color of your shit that day, but they can’t explain where all the cocaine came from or why sex trafficking rings still exist? How did they know everything else but not how that senator bought the crack he was caught smoking?

      We can’t be more than a few years away if we continue along this path.

    • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      I suspect a lot of the influence of Israel and the US on European politicians who again and again act against the European Public Opinon and in favor of Israel and the US, is the ton of blackmail material those two states have gathered on politicians the world over in the modern era of digital communications mainly via American systems, using portable networked pocket computers running OSes from American companies and which have everything needed to be a fully-features surveillance device, including a camera.

      Every single vaguelly criminal or even just shameful action of any European politician with a chance of reaching a position of power, done via or around a smartphone or computer running an American OS and/or using American chat software, is almost certainly stored in a database somewhere.

      Certainly that would explain A LOT of what’s going on in European Politics, especially when it comes to Israel turning full-on NAZI whilst European governments mainly just make believe nothing is happening or propose purely symbolic performative measures with zero effectiveness in stopping the Genocide.

  • BigMacHole@thelemmy.club
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    19 days ago

    It’s HEARTENING to Know these Platforms have the ABILITY to STOP atrocities and Almost Always choose NOT too! <3

    • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      yeah.

      Its amazing how they never once stopped an actual act of violence, but someone venting about a stressful day gets a full swat deployment.

      • stickyprimer@lemmy.world
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        18 days ago

        someone venting about a stressful day

        It’s not that I think teachers shouldn’t vent about stress. But in this day and age, a teacher who has the poor judgment to vent about stress by expressing the desire to shoot a student, in writing, probably doesn’t belong in the classroom to begin with.

        • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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          Just about every parent I’ve ever met say they want to shoot or kill their kids.

          It’s a stupid thing to be sarcastic about in that moment, but no one really thinks we should be taking everyones kids away. (For that reason).

          “I’m gonna kill him” is in so many American movies involving kids or someone talking about their spouse.

          “I’m gonna strangle em’”. Popular phrase…

          None of them should be popular phrases, but they are, lol

          • Eheran@lemmy.world
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            18 days ago

            So let’s just accept things, accept that whooopsie the person said it and we knew but we did not act, let’s not change things! Right.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          Sort of the joke in this. Crime in western countries has declined as police hyper-surveillance has increased. I don’t think it is unfair to say that a suffocating perpetual dragnet created by a public-private Big Brother network has contributed to depressed rates of stochastic violence. Or that the few groups capable of committing crimes and getting away with it are the police and sheriffs offices, the individuals in their employment, and the turncoats they use to influence and infiltrate other groups.

          We don’t count “preemptively solved crimes”, unless we’re trying to make headlines with “foiled assassination/terrorist plot” to inflate some bureaucrat’s reputation. We also don’t count false positives - people who had their doors kicked in and their family roughed up and their dog shot in the dead of night - when we’re tallying police effectiveness. Out of sight, out of mind.

          The only thing we really see is active shooters on the evening news and burglary footage on the local. So we’re always having a “crime problem”. The current police state is never big enough. Surveillance isn’t “real” enough to impact the news cycle, because something is always happening somewhere that can be reported on as the next big Crime Wave.

          • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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            19 days ago

            Sort of the joke in this. Crime in western countries has declined as police hyper-surveillance has increased

            Crime has been on a significant downturn ever since lead was removed from gasoline, and thus stopped being vaporized in the air.

            Are there places where crime spikes upward? yes, but almost 100% of the time thats caused by the failure of local, state, or federal governments creating disadvantaged, poor, underserviced people. . and you treat people poorly and keep them desperate long enough, then crime is going to occur.

            They’ll happily spend millions on the crime part, but they wont even acknowledge the underlying issue that could be addressed for far less than what oppression costs.

        • matlag@sh.itjust.works
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          19 days ago

          Joke aside, every time there were actual review of laws pushed to protect [insert whatever potential victim] from [insert whatever potential threat] at the cost of losing a tiiiiiny bit of freedom, the conclusion is always dire for the said bill/law/mechanism. All countries.

          It is never ever about protecting the people.

        • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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          19 days ago

          You think authorities wouldnt be on prime time news gloating about stopping attacks before they happened and justifying the privacy destroying bullshit they use as a necessary sacrifice for safety?

  • fum@lemmy.world
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    20 days ago

    Welcome to reality. Snapchat, WhatsApp, Facebook, intsagram, etc. They are not private. Just don’t use them. It’s wild how people are willfully ignorant about this.

    • stopforgettingit@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      This 100%. Everything you write on any of these chats, anything you write in email, anything you exchange digitally can be monitored if it is not end to end encrypted. People are way too ignorant about it. Just because you can’t search your chat history up on Google doesn’t mean you aren’t being tracked, recorded and monitored.

    • timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works
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      Literally no different than going to someone’s lawn they say is for public speech regardless and then getting arrested for inciting violence.

      It’s PUBLIC. If you want privacy then do it via your own means.

  • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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    19 days ago

    There’s a reason why Donald and his friends in Washington have all of their discussions on Signal.

    Also, if you’re not already, just assume every app and device are spying on you.

  • 🌞 Alexander Daychilde 🌞@lemmy.world
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    20 days ago

    This bullshit is getting out of hand.

    I know it’s not nearly the same level, but over on reddit I participated in a thread. Nevermind full context, someone said something about “The first half of life [something]”, someone replied “and the second half of life [something]” and I jokingly said “And the third half of life, you’re dead.”

    Couple replied to that - it was minorly amusing in context - and one of them said “Now I’m sad”. So I jokingly said “Well, good news is you won’t be sad when you’re dead”.

    Within a few minutes, I got a warning from reddit and the comment removed.

    So I appealed the warning (because if AI removes another comment, you get a 3 day suspension, then 7 day, then 30 day, then permanent), but also rephrased the commeny and basically make the joke while not even saying “dead”, but I also rolled my eyes at the reddit AI.

    I almost immediately got a permanent ban.

    THEN THE STUPIDEST BIT: They overturned the warning BUT KEPT THE PERMANENT BAN.

    Fucking idiots.

    Dont’ judge me for still spending some time on reddit, I mod a couple of places. THAT account is still going, but I also don’t use that account except to mod because of this bullshit with reddit that’s been getting worse.

    • Meatwagon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      20 days ago

      I got a warning for saying I wanted to shoot the noisy mic children (in Reddead Redemption within the Reddead Redemption subreddit). I guess next time I say I want to troll badly behaved children in a videogame I’m going to have police called on me now?

      I got the warning overturned but AI moderation is fucking ridiculous.

    • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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      there seems to be a disconnect between what the admin does, unbanning and the autobanning from reddits AI moderation, if admins unban an account but the Ai still catches you, because it detected a pattern (which they build a profile of potential spammers)which got you banned in the first place and bans you any ways, they dont want the filter clean.

      • Seasm0ke@lemmy.world
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        Uh what

        Edit I don’t feelike getting embroiled in the argument below so ill just note that eavesdropping by intelligence agencies is distinctly different from automated escalation by a private company to local law enforcement.

        • boonhet@sopuli.xyz
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          20 days ago

          The US government has been spying on “private” communications for a looooooooooong time. Idk if “well over 80 years” is accurate, but sometime around mid last century for sure.

        • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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          19 days ago

          Telegrams between North America and Europe ran over a single pathway, which ran through England. The British tapped that cable and were spying on German (and everyone else’s) communications sent through them, which is why Germany had to encode their messages to Mexico asking them to join in WW1 to get Texas back.

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          20 days ago

          You don’t know they spied on electronic communication during WW2? That’s why it’s called wire-tap… you’d literally tap into the wire and read the signal

          • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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            19 days ago

            Go back another 20ish years and we were still tapping electronic comms, the Zimmerman Telegram was WW1

          • nyan@lemmy.cafe
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            19 days ago

            Not quite the same thing, because back then, each wire had to be listened to by a human being in order to see if there was anything actionable passing along it, making surveillance a scarce resource that had to be deployed selectively. Now we have machines listening for keywords on all communications passing through a system, and the resource is no longer scarce: they can listen to everyone, and do.

            Unfortunately, people’s expectations are still stuck in the phone-tap era.

  • djsiete@sh.itjust.works
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    20 days ago

    Shout-out to all the Americans still claiming that they are more democratic than whatever other country. I take great pleasure in seeing the shit hole your country is and is still becoming. ❤️

    • forkDestroyer@infosec.pub
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      19 days ago

      take great pleasure in seeing the shit hole your country is and is still becoming. ❤️

      That’s a pretty weird thing to take pleasure in, right? Wouldn’t you want the whole world to snap out of it and become better/united?

    • abigscaryhobo@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      It’s always been a shithole. The good part was the freedom, you used to be able to be exhasperated and complain to your friends. But we decided instead of improving society that some of us would rather give a bunch of facists cameras and microphones and turns out, those facists are the evil kind of facists, not this mythical “only here to protect us” kind.

      • Ferrous@lemmy.ml
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        19 days ago

        The good part was the freedom

        Except for the slaves, which as you know, are explicitly allowed in the constitution.

        • Agent641@lemmy.world
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          19 days ago
          1. Slavery is outlawed

          2. Except for prisoners

          3. Invent a bunch of laws targeting the lower class, those in poverty, and those with substance habits

          4. Enforce the laws selectively against those with the least agency and socioeconomic means

          5. Make incarceration so dangerous that prisoners feel the need to commit further crimes on the inside to survive

          6. Game the system so that if you don’t want someone out, they don’t get out

          7. Enjoy your slaves in an emancipated country

      • OrgunDonor@lemmy.world
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        19 days ago

        I don’t know when it was but realising the American dream was garbage, and I don’t want to travel to the USA was strange.

        It wasn’t like a big hit to the face, it was just a slow crumbling of the idea from media.

        When you watched friends and saw people in these massive apartments, or huge mcmansions in other shows, it was always something to strive towards, now I actively dislike it. I would hate to live somewhere like that.

        There are(were at least, who knows how much longer they will last) some incredible and beautiful places in America, but I also don’t want to risk my life flying there (and it isn’t the planes).

        • abigscaryhobo@lemmy.world
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          19 days ago

          For me at least I feel like it was when the American dream turned from “anyone can do it with hard work and dedication” to “anyone can do it if they exploit others, get lucky, or come from money”.

          The dream used to be “work hard and this will be yours” and it seems to have been turned to “work hard and dream about it someday, and maybe you can get close”. And it definitely changed over time. People often forget when the “American dream” came about it wasn’t “get a degree, and be a white collar worker for a chance” like it was with people my age. It was “go to work, wherever, with whatever skill set/background, contribute and you get a piece of the American apple pie”. Over decades though those goal posts have been shifted further and further.

          Earning the American dream used to be a given for everyone if you worked hard and contributed, but over time it has devolved with a bunch of extra conditionals of “well that doesn’t count either” until we are left with “the dream exists, but only for a few who can actually get it.”

          People these days are turning to betting, day trading, side hustles, and extreme budgeting to even be comfortable in some cases. That’s not how it used to be. You could work any job, minimum wage or not, and the benefits were supposed to be for everyone. That’s not the case anymore, and the American dream has faded along with it

      • Soup@lemmy.world
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        19 days ago

        If freedom is the ability to complain, lots of countries with stringer regulations have that. They have it but better, even, because they have a much greater ability to stop it going away.

      • jtrek@startrek.website
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        19 days ago

        The freedom was always kind of dicey. Sedition act of 1798, for example.

        Women also historically had a bad time of it. And the native peoples. Queer folks, too. Religious freedom is hit or miss.

        It’s been pretty good for wealthy people, historically. They’ve been pretty free.

    • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      We have lost more people to gun violence in the last thirty years than every US soldier killed in every war. Death by firearm is now the number one killer of US children. I have personally lost several people I grew up with to gun violence.

      Almost 50% of US males have a criminal conviction and minorities have a close to a 30% felony conviction rate. Millions of minority and poor families have been destroyed by the war on drugs. People regularly get convicted of crimes they didn’t do because they are manipulated into plea bargains with the threat of massive time behind bars. The US jails more people per capita than just about any other nation.

      The unemployment rate for those under thirty is around 40%. Most working class families are priced out of home ownership and going to get a higher education will often indebt you for decades. You are expected to constantly change careers or you will be quickly left behind with median position length of just under four years. Many Americans have up to ten or more jobs in their lifetime due to instability in our economy.

      I raised my family for over twenty years with zero health insurance. Going to the hospital is a financially life ending event with bills easily reaching $10k + for even basic procedures unless it is just a few stitches. Medical bills account for 40% of bankruptcies and half a million people go bankrupt every year from medical debt.

      I find it amazing propaganda can manipulate rubes so easily into hating each other. The wealthy have truly won.

      • djsiete@sh.itjust.works
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        19 days ago

        Yeah, 100% agree. The wealthy also manipulate rubes into thinking that there is no viable alternative, that other countries (mainly China) are so bad and oppressive that the tubes believe they’d rather keep getting fucked than to follow in the footsteps of the Chinese. It’s so prevalent on this website and on Reddit that you’d see Americans claim they’re more free, and this comment was meant for them.

    • AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml
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      19 days ago

      And liberals and leftists still support the narrative about Venezuela elections being unfair and that the US puppets should rule the country and turn it into a neoliberal hellhole. Including the Swedish Nobel price committee for empire advancement. They will never learn.

        • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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          19 days ago

          A large fraction lemmy.ml literally cannot participate in a thread without bringing up western imperialism. Like, it could be /c/superbowl picture of an owl, and somehow it would devolve into that.

            • AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml
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              19 days ago

              It certainly ruined Venezuela, because liberals and leftists still believe the US is democratic and has the moral high ground to denigrate and interfere.

              • djsiete@sh.itjust.works
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                19 days ago

                You do know that liberals are not leftists, right? And that no serious leftist thinks the US is democratic? I’d call myself left and I abhor the US

    • glowie@infosec.pub
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      19 days ago

      You do realize that Snapchat is a corporation that has nothing to do with the democracy, right? Your comment is more dumb than an American redneck

      • fodor@lemmy.zip
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        19 days ago

        Oh honey, but it does. Real democracies have real privacy laws because you need the latter to maintain the former.

        • cardfire@sh.itjust.works
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          19 days ago

          Everybody, wait till he learns abut Chat Control abs that the sane ghouls are lobbying for this kind of legislation worldwide. It’s not JUST America, it’s the underlying capitalist machinery that let’s them subjugate the masses everywhere.

          We in America aren’t special.

          • djsiete@sh.itjust.works
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            19 days ago

            You are unfortunately the country that has led the rest of the world down this evil path. You deserve to be especially shamed for it. Stop being such a bitch and own up to it.

      • krypt@lemmy.world
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        19 days ago

        That’s the problem though - corporations have too much power and are partly running the country, or at very least assisting political parties and governments. That’s not a sign of democracy

      • djsiete@sh.itjust.works
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        19 days ago

        Snapchat had the ability to summon American law enforcement within a short timespan. Or is the law enforcement in question private?

        Also, who was front and center at Trump’s inauguration, if not corporations?

        In other words, stfu yank

        • glowie@infosec.pub
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          19 days ago

          Reading your other comments I can see you’re just a pathetic person incapable of intellectual discourse

          • djsiete@sh.itjust.works
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            19 days ago

            You’re not even worthy of it. Go let trump destroy your country while crying about how enough ppl didn’t vote or whatever. Doomed to serfdom and deluded by your own hubris. Burn in hell.

              • djsiete@sh.itjust.works
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                19 days ago

                Because I used a figure of speech? If you were to say “oh my god” then does that make you a religious fanatic too?

                • glowie@infosec.pub
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                  19 days ago

                  I don’t even live in America. You’re wasting your time with someone not even in the US. That’s how fucking stupid you are lmao

  • Super Mega Ultra Edition DX Unleashed 64@sh.itjust.works
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    20 days ago

    To the witless idiots defending authoritarianism to stop school shootings, If this sort of shit stopped school shootings then I guess we wouldn’t have school shootings.

    Guess it doesn’t. https://www.edweek.org/leadership/school-shootings-this-year-how-many-and-where/2026/01

    I do get the angry anti-2A people willing to take everyone’s guns to stop school shootings, because besides one italian kid shooting an insurance CEO, you aren’t really making good use of that amendment to hold your government accountable in the first place.

  • Zak@lemmy.world
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    20 days ago

    The statute is constructed in an unusual way because it doesn’t require that the threat is transmitted to someone who believes it. It says:

    (a) A person commits disorderly conduct when he or she knowingly:

    (3.5) 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;

    Laws against transmitting threats are usually written in a manner that excludes jokes sent to friends who understand that they are jokes.

    Also, use Signal. Signal will not call the cops when you send dumb jokes to your friends. There are no good reasons for most people to not use Signal.

  • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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    20 days ago

    and you can see why people dont want to be teachers, because of little shits like the students acting this way and they get no consequences. when before they use to get suspensions and referrals.

  • SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org
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    20 days ago

    As a teacher you should be smart enough to know there is no private conversation to be had on Snapchat. She learned a valuable lesson about her lack of privacy.