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.
That’s a great point. If they aren’t scanning for things, they likely wouldn’t be held responsible, but if they are scanning things, now they are the arbiters of what gets passed on or not.
ChatGPT had an issue where someone got flagged for being a risk, they assessed it in person and decided not to action it, and then something happened. They’re being sued and the Canadian government is getting involved.
What has snapchat now actively decided not to action, where something bad happens, now that we know they read everything?