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.
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.
You SHOULD be able to joke about ANYTHING. Who decides what things are permisible? Whoever yoy give the power to do so will then use it arbitrarily to only allow the speech that supports them — that’s how fascism is built, in fact.
Yes, we agree. You should be able to. No one should face legal action until an actual crime has been commited and joking isn’t a crime. But that doesn’t mean doing so is good. I did not say there are things you shouldn’t be able to joke about, just that there are a few topics so serious and tragic that joking about them is bad.
Saying something isn’t good is the same to say that something shouldn’t be done, is a logic equivalence in ethics.
Yes. Again, we agree… I’m both saying it shouldn’t be done because it’s bad, and that you should be able to do so because it’s legal and freedom of speech is incredibly important. Those aren’t contradicting statements.
“You should do that but you shouldn’t do that”
Anyways, besides the straw man, the point is that I don’t even consider that to be bad, so I think that saying that it shouldn’t be done — even if merely at the moral-level, but not at the legal level — it’s problematic.
Edit: The straw man is “You should do that but you shouldn’t do that”, that’s simply a joke.
Ok… At least stop putting words in my mouth. And aside from what you’re trying to do right now, there have been no strawmen in our conversation so far. Something not being illegal doesn’t inherently mean everyone should do whatever that is. I’m not saying “you should do that but you shouldn’t do that”. I’m saying you shouldn’t do that, but that is has to remain legal. As an example that I truly hope most people would agree with, cheating on your partner isn’t illegal (most places), but it’s still a really shitty thing to do.
We can definitely disagree on the social ethics around such jokes. As you say, you think such jokes are fine and I don’t. And that’s fine. I’m not advocating for censorship or anything like that. I think I’ve made it very clear that I think freedom of speech is important.
I was referring to “You should do that but you shouldn’t do that” lmao, because I was recognizing that it was a straw man, as I only said it as a joke.
And I believe that belief makes you a dangerous idiot who’ll happily support Fascism.
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.
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?
Not what I said. But any restriction that leads to law enforcement intervention without a person complaining damn sure is.
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”.
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.
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.