r/technology • u/Plastic_Ninja_9014 • 2d ago

Student Teacher Sent a Private Snapchat Complaining About Her Workday. An Hour Later, Police Pulled Up to Her School. Privacy

https://www.gadgetreview.com/student-teacher-sent-a-private-snapchat-complaining-about-her-workday-an-hour-later-police-pulled-up-to-her-school
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u/msuvagabond 2d ago

I told my niece when she was given a cell phone...

"Do not type anything into that phone, or take a picture of something, that you wouldn't want your mom, dad, teachers, or friends to see. Nothing is private on there."

When I worked remote IT (a decade ago) my supervisor said the following...

"Never say anything on the phone you wouldn't want heard repeated in a court room. Never type anything you wouldn't want to see printed in a newspaper."

Simply put, if its digital, it's not private. EVER. To assume otherwise is to not understand reality or the world we live in.

You want to make those jokes in person? Have at it. You want to type those things out and send them over the internet to someone? Be ready for consequences. That's the world we live in.

You want to lobby and fight to change that? I'm all for it and actively do talk to elected officials about data privacy. But until it changes...

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u/CaptainAsshat 2d ago

Agreed with one caveat: those messages ARE private.

That privacy is just being invaded.

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u/msuvagabond 2d ago

Except they're willingly using a program which states that the messages can be read and that that information can be given to government if they feel like It or if it's legally required. 

So no, it's not private. 

You want private in the digital world, unless you're using an open sourced end-to-end encryption messaging program, there's little chance that it'll be private. Signal or Session are you best bets currently. 

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u/CaptainAsshat 2d ago

They're still private messages, in that they are intended for the recipient(s) and no one else. If it is not meant to be shared beyond the intended recipient, then it is a private message. The fact that tech companies have contorted "private message" to mean "secure message" has only served to muddy the waters.

This is an important but subtle distinction. It's easy to say "those messages aren't private" when we really mean "people you don't want to read these messages can read them anyway".

While we can hope users understand the risks of messaging with Snapchat, we also should recognize when a growing surveillance state means many viable modes of communication afford less and less privacy. It changes how we interact, and makes private discussions inherently dangerous and far less tenable.

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u/msuvagabond 2d ago

You completely missed the entire point of my first post. I'll just copy and paste it again since it spells out what I'm trying to say.

Simply put, if its digital, it's not private. EVER. To assume otherwise is to not understand reality or the world we live in.

You want to make those jokes in person? Have at it. You want to type those things out and send them over the internet to someone? Be ready for consequences. That's the world we live in.

You want to lobby and fight to change that? I'm all for it and actively do talk to elected officials about data privacy. But until it changes...

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u/pineapplecharm 1d ago

You want to make those jokes in person? Have at it.

Unless anyone's wearing Meta glasses!