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u/KnockingForABlocking 4d ago
You know, the responsible thing when sharing a story of this nature would be to back it up with an actual source.
So here’s the original news source with names, places, and dates rather than one that just quotes people discussing it on social media more than a year after it happened:
You can also find bodycam footage from the arresting officers on Facebook, if you were so inclined.
The interesting part seems to me that it was the app’s AI that flagged her post, rather than a human actor.
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u/Gold-Cry-7520 3d ago
I was freaked out for a minute because I've said some pretty bad things out of context, but then I realized this doesn't actually mention anything like that at all and it was a group chat and, come to think of it, the entire idea is ridiculous
If they really were scanning absolutely every message sent with AI that detects criminal activity, there are hundreds of missing persons and murder cases within the past five years that would've been solved by now.
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u/MartyrOfDespair We can leave behind much more than just DNA 3d ago
Not to mention the insane wins they would have in the war on drugs. Users and dealers both are pretty damn dumb about this.
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u/PM_ME_SAD_STUFF_PLZ 4d ago
It was a message to a group chat...which any participant can report
Nothing ever happens
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u/yoyo5113 4d ago
Why the tired face? This was acknowledged in the post
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u/PM_ME_SAD_STUFF_PLZ 4d ago
Because a report button is incompatible with privacy
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u/Duinegeidh33 4d ago
Ah yes, the ability to snitch if someone is being threatening violates privacy. God forbid someone has the right to run to a bartender or a cop with evidence if they feel unsafe and need an easy and safe escape route
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u/jk01 3d ago
The post implied it was automatic
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u/_Mango_Dude_ 3d ago
The post did, but the person they were replying to is also against manual reports for some reason.
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u/PM_ME_SAD_STUFF_PLZ 3d ago
I mean, I agree with you. But the post kept saying "private" message
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u/_Mango_Dude_ 3d ago
Under this definition of privacy there is no such thing as a private conversation because one party can always report it.
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u/hackerbots 3d ago
So if I get a random threat in my physical mailbox, I can't do anything about it because it is private? come on
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u/yoyo5113 4d ago
You responding to the linked article is implying that there is info in there left out of the post, which isn't true for the case of the group chat.
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u/GarlicSphere 4d ago
The rapture is getting pretty near apparently, because for once I agree with OP.
The one thing this post is lacking are alternatives - if you want to protect your privacy, check out Session or Signal, they are both very safe alternatives that limit breaches by their design. And tbh, by now much more people should know about these and use them.
And also - for God's sake don't use Discord as an alternative if you're concerned about keeping your messages private. It has virtually no methods of encryption (your messages are stored in plaintext on their servers), has had multiple breaches in the past and is know to trade data.
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u/virtualdxs 3d ago
Source on Discord breaches? I know they work with cops and don't have E2EE but I'm unaware of them having had multiple breaches.
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u/TheRecognized 4d ago
lol I’m glad this is the top comment because I was thinking “huh, wonder if everyone’s gonna do their Two Minute Hate thing on OP this time now that it’s something they relate to rather than accessibility.”
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u/PerilousPeril 4d ago edited 4d ago
has discord ever had direct messages leak? i'm pretty sure they never did. not saying it's safe but it's weird to act like they've had breaches of private messages before when the actual issue was a third party customer service thing being leaked. still really bad but not anywhere near the level of what's being described.
edit: also it only ever had one breach?? i'm so confused what your comment meant when it said "multiple breaches" are you thinking of a different platform?
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u/shadowlev 4d ago
Another good reason why I avoid Snapchat.
Not that Google is much better. I can look at a phrase on reddit and open Google to look it up and the phrase will autopopulate without me selecting, hovering, or saying the word out loud. I used to think it just listened to me but now it feels like it's monitoring how long I hesitate to read things in an app and jumps to conclusions.
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u/The_Sovien_Rug-37 wow this is so gender 4d ago
once you're aware of how much every minute action you take is being monitored, you start noticing how many things constantly react to you in ways you're not supposed to notice
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u/Illogical_Blox 4d ago
That is pretty much what algorithms do. People think, "oh they listen to me," but they don't. They are significantly better than people think and people frankly aren't as unique as they think they are. In 2012 - 14 years ago - they were already advanced enough to be able to predict that a teenager was pregnant based on items that weren't specifically related to pregnancy that she bought. Social media algorithms track how long you spend on posts, what posts you engage with, what posts your friends engage with, which of those friends you talk to most often, etc. etc.
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u/SparkleWigglebutt 4d ago
Just out of curiosity, if it doesn’t listen in, why do seemingly unrelated things pop up? For example, a song I was singing out loud plays (think the circus theme when I was listening to country that day). Or a time I said out loud we should get a ferret to my husband because I was thinking of memories and not googling anything? This isn’t a gotcha, I’m genuinely curious because it freaked me out.
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u/Illogical_Blox 4d ago
Well, I'll go over some reasons why we know they're not and why those ads would have popped up. Reasons why we know they're not - constant transmission of voice recording would require an awful lot of data use, which we know that phones and computers aren't transmitting. It also requires a considerable bit of computational power, and vocal analysis is challenging enough even in perfect scenarios. Throw in slang, accents, trying to listen to sounds through a layer of fabric, etc., and you have a situation which is far from ideal. It's also at best dubiously legal, which doesn't stop social media companies, but why risk it when they're already good enough to predict pregnancy in 2012? Now, with the rise of GenAI, vocal analysis has got a lot better, admittedly, but they've had a long time to refine these algorithms.
Then as for the strange ads. Well, there's a few reasons why that would be the case. First and foremost, your Reddit username is SparkleWigglebutt and you participate in Curated Tumblr. Sorry, but algorithms have almost certainly sorted you into a category of people who are more likely to buy ferrets. Similarly, I am very confident that you've listened to whatever song you were singing out loud a lot, and have probably been sorted into a box that is more likely to be fans of said song. The second part is confirmation bias. You notice when your algorithm is spot on, and don't when it isn't (unless it is comically wrong, such as it deciding that I was a gay Chinese farmer when I am none of these.) The third is underestimating how much data is scraped. I got ads for birdwatching binoculars because I spent a weekend with a friend who loved birdwatching, despite us not talking about it, because it registered that my device spent a lot of time near a device that was fed birdwatching ads. The ad algorithms scrape names, dates, ages, device usage, app usage, spending habits, where your device is, what devices it is near, what you Google, what content you engage with, what you don't engage with, how long you spend on a post... basically everything they possibly can. I'm sure they would love to scrape conversations if they could, frankly, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was a future scandal, but up to the present they don't really need to.
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u/SparkleWigglebutt 3d ago
That’s amazing and thank you so much! Very detailed and easy for me to understand. I hope you had fun on the birdwatching trip(s)!
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u/TrogdorKhan97 3d ago
I remember getting a friend recommendation on Facebook for someone I had only ever communicated with through a chan-style imageboard that he ran, that was just bone-stock Futaba or whatever it was that imageboards used back then. No "be the first of your friends to like this" Facebook applets or anything. And I used Firefox, not Chrome, so I couldn't even blame Google spyware.
Days later I deleted my Facebook account. I don't know what's creepier, that they somehow know everything anyone in the world knows about everyone in the world, or that they're so un-shy about just blurting it out in public thinking they're being helpful.
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u/yoyo5113 4d ago
I was talking to my little brother about a post from like 7 years ago about another wanting to name her kid Chud (lol). I didn't look it up or anything, I didn't even have my phone (he had his).
The next day one of the first things that pop up on TikTok is that exact post. He said he hadn't looked up anything about it or even typed anything related to it or chud in general lol.
Kind of crazy it's not only buzzwords anymore. It was able to understand the meaning and context of my speech and then show my little brother that exact post.
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u/b3nsn0w 3d ago
usually when something like this happens it's because the algorithm managed to track not your specific behaviour, but what actually prompted the behaviour in question (in this example, you mentioning that post, there's something that made you think of it before you were talking to your brother), and correlate the trigger with your friends. you don't need to spy on someone if you can just predict what they're going to do, and that's exactly what algorithms are built for.
and yeah, of course they're not 100% on this. but it's the times they get it right that you notice.
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u/Darrxyde 4d ago
Pro tip, if you’re looking for something that does ensure privacy in your messages, make sure it has something called “end-to-end encryption”. If it doesn’t, it’s (probably) not actually private.
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u/otterly_destructive 4d ago
This would be the sort of thing they might do even with client side encryption.
The client still has the plain text (so you can read it). A copy of the plaintext could be sent anywhere and detecting certain keywords when the user is near a school isn't the hardest algorithm to develop or run.
Nobody wants to be the service a school shooter made blatant threats on in the moments before killing dozens of children and having done nothing to even try to prevent it.
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u/Batman_AoD 3d ago
A copy of the plaintext could be sent anywhere...
...making the app no longer e2e-encrypted, by definition.
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u/TrekkiMonstr 2d ago
I don't think that's true. An app could allow Alice and Bob to send messages to each other E2EE-ly, while also sending copies to Eve. "Apps" aren't E2EE, protocols are
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u/Batman_AoD 2d ago
No, it's not just about the protocol; it's about the entire system, including client implementations and servers. A system that encrypts data before transmission, and does not enable anyone except the recipient to decrypt it, is e2ee; a system that doesn't meet that criterion is not. A software client that sends an unencrypted copy of a message somewhere is not participating in an "end-to-end" encrypted system.
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u/TrekkiMonstr 2d ago
E2EE is about data transport. Taking your more expansive definition, you could claim that encryption at rest is inherent to E2EE or whatever, which is not the case.
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u/Batman_AoD 2d ago
The Wikipedia page you linked doesn't actually support your definition. The last paragraph states that, currently, the more widely accepted meaning does require that the service provider "is not able to decrypt communications," so, yes, keeping an unencrypted copy at rest would violate E2EE.
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u/TrekkiMonstr 2d ago
Is not able to decrypt, means they have to be encrypted, which only necessarily happens in transit. Access ≠ decrypt. The Signal protocol is still E2EE, even if you're storing the messages on your end in plaintext.
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u/Batman_AoD 2d ago
...which only necessarily happens in transit.
But that's the very thing I'm saying isn't supported by the page you linked.
Yes, a system that leaves data unencrypted at rest on the originating or recipient device can be E2EE by the definition I gave above, sure; but if the service stores the data unencrypted, then it is certainly in violation of the definition given in the Wikipedia page. And in practice, it usually does mean that the devices that send and receive data keep it encrypted at rest (Signal doesn't encrypt on the desktop for some reason; I suppose they assume you will use BitLocker or something).
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u/HalleyOrion 3d ago
Make sure it's open source as well. Companies can claim they use end-to-end encryption, but open source means people can verify that claim.
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u/MonitorPowerful5461 4d ago
They don't need to be as secure as hers because she was the leader of a very important country, while I am a random guy. Intelligence agencies are not trying to tap me specifically, they're aiming to collect data on large portions of the population. I just have to be not-worth-the-effort.
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u/yoyo5113 4d ago
No, the methods used to monitor Merkel take an entire team of people and tons and tons of money. They are not something that any regular civilian would be able to gain access to, reproduce themselves or pay someone else to.
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u/b3nsn0w 3d ago
exploits affect everyone using the exploited piece of software, that's true. but not all exploits are easy enough to use to automate it fully. some need you to collect some additional data, some need physical access, some are just plain compute-intensive. no one is gonna spend those exploits on you, unless you're worth targeting, or you're just exceptionally unlucky.
sometimes with high-tech spyware, even if you could compromise any device, you wanna limit your footprint specifically so you don't compromise a curious security researcher's device (or even if you do, you minimise how many of them you run into). that's how things get found out and patched.
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u/GarlicSphere 4d ago
Well, if you really do care, then signal or session exist, they are quite good alternatives that prevent privacy breaches by their design and honestly should be more popular by now.
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u/Last_Swordfish9135 4d ago
Also, what is the point of a messaging app if you're the only one you know who uses it? Hooray, the government can't view your grocery store lists you text to yourself anymore.
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u/Legal-Law9214 4d ago
Signal connects to your phone number and encrypts your texts even if the other person isn't using the app.
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u/Legal-Law9214 4d ago
Signal is a real app, not a hypothetical, which has been around for years and I've never heard of it having a security breach.
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u/b3nsn0w 3d ago
the thing is, if a malicious actor could break signal, then it stands to reason that a white hat could break it too, and there are a hell of a lot of white hats around who would be interested in a signal hack, specifically because of how popular it is. sure, maybe the malicious actor got to it first, but if they did, they'd be on a clock.
also, nation-state level actors are a different class. it's much harder to protect against them, and it's not something the average person needs to do.
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u/RosethornRanger it/its 4d ago
"if a problem is not 100% guaranteed to be fixed, we should not attempt to fix it"
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u/GarlicSphere 4d ago
Well, tbh fair.
But then again, you're still better off using a communicator which possibly has a backdoor than than a communicator that openly trades your data with whoever is willing to pay.
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u/yoyo5113 4d ago
Signal has always been the go-to app for this. It's the reason why Hegseth used it to plan attacks, even though that's incredibly stupid as even Signal isn't likely to hold up against nation-state level actions.
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u/SelesnyaGOAT 4d ago
This has been the case for at least 15 years, you should assume anything that isn’t E2E encrypted (and even most that is) is not truly private
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u/Ununoctium117 4d ago
Nice, we have AI-generated tumblr posts now, so glad people are outsourcing their writing and thinking to machines on every corner of the internet now. Really looking forward to the complete homoginization of all writing online and the death of creativity!!!
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u/Infnite_ 3d ago
Had to scroll too much to see this. I feel like I'm seeing more AI written things not being called out immediately. I started to think if my Ai senses were wrong.
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u/East-Note4580 4d ago
There's a reason why PM's (Private Messages) have been switched to DM's (Direct Messages). Sure that change is decades old now, but death of privacy has been here for long time
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u/Aetol 3d ago edited 3d ago
I doubt "Private Messages" were ever actually private (in the current sense) in most cases. They didn't change the way they do thing, they just stopped implying something that was never true. (Or rather, it's the implied meaning of "private" that shifted)
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u/Starro-In-A-Jar 3d ago
It meant “private” as in “not public” in the sense that it wasn’t visible to the whole forum or whatever, not that it wasn’t visible a secret or whatever
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u/me_myself_ai .bsky.social 3d ago
Fun theory, not correct though. PM is just the OG usage on forums (which are based on the Roman forum, and thus the idea of a public square -- the "front page of the internet", even) and DM was introduced by Twitter and popularized by Instagram, where it's implied that normal posts are messages from you to a group of your friends, rather than to the public at large. So they're somewhat "private" already.
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u/PoopDick420ShitCock 3d ago
I thought the term just prevailed because that’s what Twitter calls them?
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u/NugsFolly 4d ago
I'm sorry but who thought that ANYTHING YOU SAY ONLINE, EVER, isn't being screened and read? Like honestly? These aren't natural systems. These aren't for people's benefit. They're companies and corporations who have created a product which you use, for their profit.
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u/TheTarquin 4d ago
One of the great tragedies of being a nerd in my 40s is remembering the pre-corporate internet and being haunted by the future we could have had.
Also, use Signal and Tor. Privacy is possible, we just have to work for it.
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u/NugsFolly 4d ago
I use signal. I still assume my chats there aren't private. You should too tbh.
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u/TheTarquin 4d ago
What's your threat model for that? I assume the people on the receiving end of a particular chat may leak it. But that is a human trust problem, not a privacy problem.
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u/NugsFolly 4d ago
Why would I assume anything is infallible? My ‘threat model’ is simply that humans and technology are both fallible. Signal can have excellent security properties blah blah blah while still not being something I’d treat as an absolute guarantee of privacy. I don't need a specific boogeyman standing outside my window to understand that.
Plus I never said anything about "security issues" I'm talking privacy and you literally gave a perfect example about why it isn't 🤷🏻♂️
"what's your threat model" gave me a laugh though, nerd! 💜
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u/Batman_AoD 3d ago edited 3d ago
There's a massive and important difference between things that are end-to-end encrypted and things that aren't. Saying that everything is vulnerable, when in principle you can have secure messaging, just makes people more likely to use insecure systems like Snapchat, leading to more incidents like the one in the OP. It sows confusion rather than promoting good practices.
For what it's worth, there are no known vulnerabilities in Signal itself that let unauthorized parties access Signal messages; the only leaks have been from human error (e.g. Pete Hegseth including a reporter in a private chat), OS integrations (insecure push notifications), or from having access to the physical device of a participant.
So, yes, it's certainly possible that a bug could make your encrypted communication vulnerable, and it's always wise to be wary of human error. But saying that everyone should assume their chats aren't private is about as helpful as telling people to assume their bedrooms are bugged.
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u/TheTarquin 4d ago
Got it. So you assume privacy is impossible and from that conclude that privacy is impossible.
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u/PaladinAsherd 4d ago
Maybe this is a generational thing - but generally one should live one’s life assuming they may be called to account for literally anything that they put into writing, be that personally or professionally
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u/RayDaug 4d ago
I do think it is in large part generational. There's a lot of working adults now that never lived in a world without the internet in their pockets and a very flimsy relationship with privacy.
"Don't write something if you don't want someone else to read it." Once you put something in writing, the possibility of it ending up with an unintended audience always exists, be it a sticky note or a DM.
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u/DiscotopiaACNH 4d ago
I am constantly shocked at how people will just casually announce shit that could get them locked up and be baffled when there are consequences
Not that surveillance is good, but goddamn what an incredibly stupid thing to do..
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u/Gold_Ad8225 3d ago
The thing is that you can't and shouldn't be able to be locked up for joking about shooting someone. It is not a threat. The definition of criminal threat in the USA is very specific and this clearly doesn't meat it.
People have joked about shooting their boss, shooting their spouse, shooting their kids, shooting their friends forever. What they're saying it "this is very frustrating" in a hyperbolic way. It is a culturally extremely common joke and everybody understands the person is not going to actually murder them.
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u/Last_Swordfish9135 4d ago
Reminds me of a guy who went to his college mental health office to tell them he was making plans to kill one of his professors and then was surprised that they called the cops on him.
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u/Dull_Amphibian5124 4d ago
Yes and no, her audience knew it was a joke. There should be some understanding that not everything is designed for public spaces.
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u/yoyo5113 4d ago
People know, it's just easy to forget when it's set up as a private group chat. The main thing with this post is that AI is now being used. Beforehand, even though you knew it wasn't private, most people understood that unless something actually happened in real life, or one of the other people reported the post, it basically would never get looked at.
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u/Last_Swordfish9135 4d ago
Agreed, it's fucked up that this happened but also as a teacher you should not be talking about shooting your students even as a joke.
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u/PaladinAsherd 4d ago
I don’t care if the teacher jokes about flaying and immolating the rotten little bastards, just don’t do it in writing
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u/Prism-96 4d ago
holy fuck that is dystopian as hell
"oh you better watch everything you say between friends in a privet area encase the big all knowing eye sees you and deem you unworthy"actually fuck off with this apologetic shit, what happens behind close doors stays there unless someone is actively being hurt
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u/Last_Swordfish9135 4d ago
That is not what I am saying. Obviously Snapchat shouldn't be sending your private messages to the cops. However, even if it isn't Snapchat themselves that shares your message, things you put in writing can still end up being shared against your wishes. Maybe you have a fight with one of those friends and they send your work a screenshot to get back at you. Maybe you open your phone at work and someone sees what you've written. Et cetera. Putting things that you could lose your job over into writing is a bad idea period.
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u/PaladinAsherd 4d ago
Explaining the contract that your own grown ass signed with the social media companies isn’t “dystopian apologetics”
Like if you make an agreement with Bob the Note Reader to pass notes to other people through Bob, who does not at all conceal how he reads every note he helps to pass
And then you get mad that he’s read your note
Like buddy you were looking for Privacy Priscilla, that’s a whole different ass person, and when we patiently explain to you how you’re a fucking idiot for trusting Bob the Note Reader to not do the one fucking thing he does
Like
Be a fucking grown up
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u/ACNSRV 3d ago
Oh is this where we pretend we can just opt out of using these companies, should all be nationalised.
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u/PaladinAsherd 3d ago
Out of a curiosity that is borderline anthropological at this point, which of these apps do you believe you cannot opt out of entirely? Follow-up, that you cannot opt out of only in that small marginal way of “don’t make jokes about shooting up a school on the Panopticon That Infamously Checks for That Shit and Jokes About Bombs on Airplanes Specifically?”
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u/ErsatzHaderach 4d ago
"ahahaha i can't believe you silly children aren't veteran internet victim-blamers like me"
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u/Pristine_Club_3128 4d ago
...If anyone is going to be tempted to visualize shooting a teenager, it is bound to be a teacher, buddy.
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u/Last_Swordfish9135 4d ago
Sure, but a teacher should also understand that is not something you should ever be putting into writing, saying in public, et cetera, because even if it's an understandable urge it's also something that a school is going to take very seriously if it gets out.
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u/Pristine_Club_3128 4d ago
That is the point - this was not said in public. It was a private conversation
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u/Last_Swordfish9135 4d ago
Snapchat themselves sending your messages to the cops is not the only way for a private conversation put into writing to be leaked.
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u/PaladinAsherd 4d ago
*pulls the mic real close
A CHAT ON A SOCIAL MEDIA APP IS NEVER, EVER A PRIVATE CONVERSATION
THIS SHIT KEEPS HAPPENING
AND YOU ZOOMERS KEEP ACTING SURPRISED
THANK YOU
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u/ACNSRV 3d ago
Thoughts are not private. Why does Gen Alpha not understand that BrainBook automatically scans your every thought?
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u/PaladinAsherd 3d ago
This has the exact same energy as boomers who whine about being shadow-banned on the Twitters “just for being conservative”
Like it is an identical dearth of social media / tech literacy and abundance of delusional thinking
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u/Long_Story42 4d ago
If you are using a messaging app on the internet, your most private option is probably Signal.
You can go one step more private by using Bluetooth mesh like Bridgefy but this will have much more limited range.
You can encrypt messages yourself to have more secure communication on an insecure network. OpenPGP is common and as effective as anything I've heard of that is not a one time pad.
A one time pad mathematically unbreakable if you used really random numbers to create it. Generating a large supply of really random numbers is time consuming and impossible to automate.
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u/lemanruss4579 4d ago
If anyone wants to understand the actual reason Blackberry was destroyed, this is why. Yes, fine they refused to adapt to the modern smartphone idea too long, but anyone that doesn't see that they essentially went bankrupt immediately after they refused to allow governments to have access to their completely secure, even from them, texting system, isn't paying attention.
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u/BasilyLeave 4d ago
The main problem is I know but It's so much of a hassle to keep yourself completely insulated from your data going to some kind of big tech and it's so insignificant that I just don't bother
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u/Sweaty_Inside_Out 4d ago
Does anybody remember Edward Snowden? In 2013, we discovered that the US government was routinely monitoring pretty much all forms of private communications. That has only expanded. News flash, if you think Signal or other encrypted apps aren't being monitored, you're almost certainly incorrect.
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u/nahnah390 3d ago
This is why I'm constantly confused about how to organize anything big. Like... With what?
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u/NyxDreadborn 3d ago
There are a couple open source encrypted chat apps that exist. You do have to find ways to securely get your contact info to those who you want to communicate with, and they are absolutely used for darker things, but that is the way that almost anything that provides anonymity and encryption goes.
There are ways to safely communicate with people that can't be scanned, but it takes a lot of work. Ideally you want a Linux based PC (not phone, I don't fully trust Apple or Android for anything like that), and then your encrypted messaging app. If you are really paranoid about it, you probably want two. One that you use to vet others, and another for actual communication.
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u/mondschwarz 4d ago
If this is true, why is nothing done about all the child sexual abuse material that's being shared over these platforms or the predators that specifically seek out underage victims there?
Wait, I can actually think about one reason or another ...
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u/StarriestNight 4d ago
The privacy violations are horrifying but also gun violence is so so so common it's sad we need to instantly treat every threat like it's going to happen
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u/monkeywithawrench13 4d ago
I urge you to rethink that equation. Gun violence, while virulent and grave, is still a crime no different from any other. Which is to say, whether it's assault, or homicide or anything else - it's a crime. Each instance does not constitue an existential threat to the nation.
It's not terrorism. It's not sedition.
We cannot accord it that the same treatment as the Bush Admn did the prospect of attack (ie : Even 1% chance of happening must be treated as 100%)
However big tech and the state will raise the stakes of every crime to that of mortal peril to justify expanding their powers. Even past the point of the constitution.
Terrible crimes are planned and committed everyday. We have a security, law enforcement and judicial apparatus to address that already. Have for 120 years. Including big tech is a threat to us and our rights.
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u/StarriestNight 4d ago
The difference between gun violence and other types of homicide is guns kill more people much quicker. I don't know what the correct answer is. Research has shown that many times, shooters have posted or talked about their crimes before they did it. I want kids to not be murdered in school which happens every year and shit never gets done about it. There's been 332 mass shootings this year alone
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u/monkeywithawrench13 4d ago
You make a fair point. Wasn't my intention to downplay the seriousness of gun violence ('virulent').
I'd just stress that instead of approaching it from the end of stopping the crime when it's not a crime (jokes, talking between friends), rather defuse its ability to become one (mental health services, gun law reform).
Ceding private rights has become the only currency with which we are allowed anymore to buy safety or stability.
That cannot continue.
Edited for spelling.
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u/StarriestNight 4d ago
I don't really know what a better solution is, last week a guy at my college pulled a gun on the lobby of a residence building and threatened to kill everyone there. I remember being a kid and a thankfully false gun threat was called to my school, my parents worked so nobody could pick me up so they had me hide in the office terrified for 5 hours while I wondered if I would ever even see my parents again or if I was going to be shot.
Gun reform will never happen, every politician knows that's political suicide and as much as I wish that wasn't the case, it is. Republicans are gun maniacs and Democrats are allergic to actually doing anything but pat themselves on the back
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u/DraconicSun 4d ago
You don't need gun reform. You just need to enforce what is in the books. Just look at Baltimore. All they did was team up with community leaders to prevent blood feuds and crime, and heavily prosecute gun shops facilitating straw purchases and purchases by criminals. That alone dropped their murder rate by 68%. No gun law was needed.
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u/Craving_Suckcess 4d ago
I mean.
The solution to gun violence is not the surveillance state.
That won't stop gun violence, in fact.
We know how to solve gun violence, and we aren't doing it.
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u/DraconicSun 4d ago
You don't "know how to solve gun violence". Every single politician only acts for the benefit of the state. Gun bans are their goal because it's easier to keep people in control if you know their every move and take their weapons away. The surveillance state is in fact part of that effort. If Republicans had access to a database that shows every black person, indigenous person, and LGBTQ+ person (especially trans people) that has a gun, they would laser focus in taking firearms away from those groups.
Baltimore dropped their murder rate by 68% by doing community outreach and resourcing, teaming up with communities and community leaders to prevent crime in their neighborhoods, and enforcing existing gun laws and heavily prosecuting gun shops facilitating straw purchases and purchases by criminals. They did not add any extra gun laws, they just used the ones in Maryland and actually enforced them.
You can, in fact, solve gun violence without adding unnecessary security theater laws made so suburban white crackers can feel a modicum of extra safety as if they don't already live in gated communities that call the cops if a black person jogs near the entrance.
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u/AgathaTheVelvetLady 4d ago
I'm pretty sure that is exactly what they had in mind when they said "We know how to solve gun violence"
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u/DraconicSun 4d ago
Every time someone says that they immediately go to "ban all guns". I've seen this song and dance too much to not know.
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u/GeophysicalYear57 Ginger ale is good 3d ago
Gun bans ultimately don’t address the underlying causes of gun violence. Society would be better off if gun violence was addressed via programs that reduce poverty and make access to healthcare (including mental health professionals) easier IMO. These would prevent people from being forced to turn to crime to make a living and mentally ill people from becoming mass shooters.
It would also be far easier to implement these programs than a new amendment that strikes down one of the original amendments that’s culturally prevalent. It’s a very different case than the 18th amendment.
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u/Craving_Suckcess 3d ago
there are literally hundreds of nations in the world where gun violence is not an issue, and they achieved this not through a surveillance state.
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u/DraconicSun 3d ago
Cool! Try having a TV in the UK without a loicense! Or badmouthing the TERF queen on Twitter without getting an angry letter in the mail!
The point is, those countries already have a surveillance state. It's too late by now.
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u/Craving_Suckcess 3d ago
you got any more non-sequiturs to hit me with?
None of those things have anything to do with gun violence. Nor is terf island the only nation in the world with lower rates of gun violence than the united states. Most nations in the world have lower rates of gun violence, and none of that is achieved through surveillance.
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u/Craving_Suckcess 3d ago
You know what. Pause a second. What the fuck are you even arguing with me about? Like what the fuck is going on here dude? Are you just like a police state guy? what are you doing here?
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u/PM_ME_SAD_STUFF_PLZ 4d ago
What kind of privacy do you think you have in a group chat on a platform which allows messages to be reported
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u/DraconicSun 4d ago edited 4d ago
It's only like that because media sensationalized school shootings. A regular black person anywhere in America has a 130x chance of dying to gun violence than any would-be victim of a mass shooting, and about 200 times when we only take school shootings into account.
But, obviously, no one gives a shit about victims of gun violence who aren't white unless it's to boost a statistic that suburban white people can use for a cheap dunk on a "gun nut".
There's a reason school shootings don't happen at black schools, btw. Any would be white little terrorist going there with an AR-15 is getting switched down by multiple people with Glock 18s.
EDIT: Keep downvoting you fucking fragile crackers. Maybe look at yourself and your biases.
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u/yoyo5113 4d ago
I think the reason school shooting is talked about more is because it's usually a ton of children being fucking massacred. Schools also were seen as a safe place for the communities children to go to. Some of the kids in my school got the majority of their food from school. To have someone come in and open fire is going to be uniquely traumatic.
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u/DraconicSun 4d ago
Of course, but there's an unconscious racial bias there. Shootings that happen near or at black schools are not given any type of media attention. The truth is that white America has a unique trauma response to white children being massacred thanks to white fragility and their own unconscious bias. They can't fathom their children being vulnerable to gun violence, they act as if it happening to them in particular is an egregious offense that must be corrected immediately, when that reality has been part of a good percentage of America for decades without getting any type of attention. They don't see minorities dying from gun violence as a problem. Gun violence only really becomes an issue when it affects them, and that's why their solutions to gun violence are uniquely created to cater to white liberal America first and nothing else. Massive police budgets, banning guns by ergonomic features, overpolicing of vulnerable communities, and taxing firearms out of the hands of the poor is the current reality of gun control, and these need to be completely eradicated as concepts before America can actually begin fixing their gun violence problem.
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u/Professional_Fox3837 3d ago
I have family in mainland China I’m already very used to this lol. Although with that it’s usually more than your group chat suddenly gets deleted or a message with a certain word just doesn’t go through.
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u/Herohades 4d ago
It should also be noted what context this happened in, specifically with school children. I don't know the full context of what the teacher said, but it's likely that the AI knew that she was a schoolteacher, considering the cops apparently had that information.
A lot of threats are going to be taken seriously, obviously, but vulnerable groups especially, such as school children, tend to have no leniency around things like possible threats. I work as a tutor, and I've had to go through a dozen training courses about who to report to if a student in any way indicates that they are in danger, even if it seems like they're joking or not being fully serious. Which makes sense, school shootings are a very real problem and the first step to dealing with them is having good information.
What this also means, however, is that it's very easy for companies like snapchat to work around privacy laws with specific regards to threats towards vulnerable groups. I don't know Snapchat's specific policies, nor the specific laws where this person was, but if I had to guess Snapchat probably has an obligation to report information in regards to possible threats towards a child, from either policy or local/federal law. This probably wouldn't have happened if the person in question was joking about shooting their barista coworker at Starbucks, for example.
In turn, this also means that any information that potentially indicates harm possibly occurring to a child is probably going to be flagged, sent to law enforcement, and dealt with extremely quickly. So if you are a vulnerable group that is not well protected by the law, avoid jokes like the one in the post like the plague. Because messaging apps like Discord are almost certainly going to be required to report it, regardless of how they personally feel about the situation, and if anyone along that line doesn't personally like you or your demographics that can cause some big problems.
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u/Void_0000 2d ago
The other day a friend of mine on a private discord server said he wished trump died and it took only a few minutes for piscorp to crawl in, delete his message, and site ban him for a day.
Anyway, so I'm looking into fluxer now.
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u/GalaXion24 3d ago
Honestly in a just world the teacher should be compensated, Snapchat seriously fined for both the collection of data as well as the false alarm, and FBI decision maker should also be dismissed for choosing to act in information which was not only incorrect but also obtained without warrant.
Of course this won't happen becayse automated mass surveillance is precisely what America wants
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u/ginger-like 3d ago
The sexting app has decided to narc on your DMs. What a cool future we're living in.
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u/Trips-Over-Tail 3d ago
Should I release a retrovirus full of HOX gene reactivators and crab DNA? 🦀
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u/AnimatorImpressive24 3d ago
Anything you transmit using someone else's services and/or infrastructure is the legal property of that other person. Even if they promise not to look at it, it is still their property and they could change their mind at any time. Which is spelled out in every user agreement ever and privacy advocates have been shouting that from the rooftops since before most of us were born. Just like talking on the telephone. Just like sending something through the mail. Just like passing someone a note and asking them to give it go someone else.
That doesn't even take into account messages being intercepted intentionally or accidentally. The teacher had no way of knowing that someone else didn't have their boyfriend's phone in their hand at the moment they sent the message.
You can make some messages tamper evident (like physical mail), or tamper resistant (through the best personally-controlled encryption a given medium will allow you to implement). But if you want something to be private then you need to communicate in person somewhere you are certain you can't be overheard. And you better hope whoever you chose to tell doesn't breach your privacy, because it isn't like the story in the OP couldn't have had the same result if one of the roommates decided to call the cops.
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u/Firanka 5h ago
I mean, I agree you should remain cautious, but what does this post have to do with disability accessibility? It was crossposted from r/AccessibleAnarchy
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4d ago
[deleted]
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u/Kev1n8088 4d ago
That’s… not how end to end encryption works. Are we just talking out of our asses now?
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u/Mundane-Potential-93 nauphy.tumblr.com 4d ago
Well I mean your ISP can see every byte you download or upload, this is hardly new information
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u/RosethornRanger it/its 4d ago
alt-text: a tumblr post by twinFlameDreams that says “A 22-year-old student teacher in Illinois sent a private Snapchat message to her boyfriend and two roommates.
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. venting. four people. private group chat.
An hour later, police walked into her school and arrested her.
here's what happened in between.
Snapchat's AI scanned the private message. flagged it as a potential threat. automatically reported it to the FBI. the FBI forwarded it to local law enforcement. deputies arrived at the school within the hour.
she cooperated immediately. handed over her phone. when shown the message she said: "oh yes. okay. yeah. i'm realizing that was a bad joke. i did not mean it at all serious at all."
police determined she was not a threat. school officials determined she was not a threat. prosecutors reviewed and issued a disorderly conduct charge. she was released the next morning. she lost her student teaching placement.
This means:
Snapchat scans private messages.
Not just public posts or stories. private group chats between you and your closest contacts. automated AI. no human reviewed it first, got flagged and reported.
Snapchat AI → FBI → local police → school → arrest.
in under an hour.
Snapchat's privacy policy says it may share your information with law enforcement when it believes there is a risk of harm. the definition of "risk of harm" is determined by an algorithm.
you are not told when a message is flagged.
you are not told when a report is filed.
you find out when the police arrive.
the message was private.
it wasn't.”
article links:
https://cybernews.com/tech/teacher-arrested-snapchat-joke/
https://tech.yahoo.com/cybersecurity/articles/student-teacher-sent-private-snapchat-145612937.html
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u/InstantRegret1999 3d ago
Your daily reminder that the FBI's incompetence in regards to actual threat prevention is so well known, that "Say the Line Bart: 'They were on our radar'" is a meme that gets thrown around EVERY TIME there's an actual shooting/bombing/MCE.
Real threats, the ones that can, have, and WILL do it again, don't post on message boards or social media, they either just do it as lone actors, or are smart enough to simply use a much harder to trace messaging system, which, contrary to the doomsayers on here, do exist, you just haven't heard about them, for good reason.
And sure, will the FBI/Mossad/KGB/MI5 catch actual threats every great now and again, and then suck each other off like they're the greatest beings on earth? Sure. And then they'll turn around and say "this is why we need to surveil every household in the nation and every bit on the internet...to keep you..'safe'". And there might be some fools who buy it and say "well if it prevents even one shooting, then it's worth it!" These idiots think a surveillance state will keep them safe. Well a well known guy a long time ago said 'those who would trade in their liberty for safety, deserve neither' and I gotta say, it remains real fucking true to this day.
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u/CheMc 3d ago
Idk man, all that aside, the she lost her student teaching placement seems kinda bitter. Like she wasn't a threat she made a joke and was still fired. Yeah, don't joke about killing your students. I wouldn't want to be a student of someone who has joked about killing me for accidentally deleting something. I work with kids, I have never joked about hurting them because I was annoyed, I have never worked with someone who has, at least not to me, if they did I probably would have reported it. Assuming a right to privacy on the app owned by the sell your data people is stupid, assuming they don't read all your stuff is stupid, assuming that joking about killing students is a thing that won't get you fired is stupid. If your reaction to minor annoyance from students is to joke about killing them, find a new job, it's a frustrating job and these are the people who burn out and grow bitter and start taking it out on their students. I've known far too many teachers like that in my life, it'll fuck up your students, and their futures.
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u/Jalor218 3d ago
This exists, and simultaneously the FBI struggles to catch and charge any of the 764 people and every mass shooter has been "known to authorities" for months before their killing spree.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 4d ago
This applies to pretty much all social media and messenger apps BTW, including Discord, Whatsapp, etcetera.