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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.

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[-] djsiete@sh.itjust.works 19 points 11 hours 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 35 points 8 hours 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?

[-] mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

I'm not offering an opinion on the matter, I'd just like to point out that taking pleasure in one does not exclude the ability to take pleasure in the other.

[-] Doomsider@lemmy.world 13 points 8 hours 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 4 points 8 hours 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.

[-] Doomsider@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

I think we both can agree on what is happening even if we see some things differently. I view the three major fascist leaning states as the US, Russia, and China in that order. While China has done some amazing things there is plenty of valid criticism outside of just western propaganda.

China is great because of the US not despite it. They have made the wealthy more money in a shorter amount of time than any country before it in history working together. China has produced more billionaires than any nation for the third year straight showing zero signs of slowing.

China is currently running cover for the entire industrialized world. If they were really at odds with all the western nations who dog on them then I don't think they would have cut their oil consumption by almost 5 million barrels a day, thus staving off a collapse of global markets.

American freedom is misnomer and is merely a function of a lot of land spread out that creates a feeling of less government interference which is compounded if you are a privileged white male.

The US government is the universal destroyer of freedom, not the creator of it. I totally agree there are a ton US citizens that are absolutely clueless that they live in the most violent anti-freedom fascist nation in the world.

Speaking of following in the footsteps, this current administration has done several things to come closer to Chinese policy from trying to become more neo-authoritarian to allowing the government a more active role in business. If the current administration succeeds in its current goal the US could become even more of a one-party system than it already is.

[-] abigscaryhobo@lemmy.world 11 points 10 hours 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 11 points 10 hours ago

The good part was the freedom

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

[-] Agent641@lemmy.world 13 points 9 hours 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

[-] ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one 2 points 7 hours ago

You forgot a step, privatize prisons for profits.

[-] abigscaryhobo@lemmy.world -2 points 7 hours ago

Sure, let's whataboutism the discussion, love that.

[-] jtrek@startrek.website 2 points 6 hours 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.

[-] OrgunDonor@lemmy.world 5 points 10 hours 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 2 points 7 hours 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

[-] jtrek@startrek.website 1 points 6 hours ago

The "american dream" has always had a problematic contradiction. You should work hard. Working hard is good. You should work hard so you don't have to work anymore. Working sucks and you don't want to do it. You want to be the guy on a golf course getting money while those hard working people assemble widgets for you.

Well, which is it then?

[-] Soup@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours 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.

this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2026
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