joe

we must make the implied right to privacy explicit

I would be interested in reading more about how you imagine this might work.

To be up front, I don’t consider unencrypted messages on someone else’s server to be “private” at all; Snapchat can obviously see everything anyone sends unencrypted on their app. So, that’s where I’m starting from.

In what way is an unencrypted message sent using software you don’t control on a server you don’t control “private”?

Does Snapchat even call them “private chats”? Or are they called something like “Direct Messages”?

A 22 year old should know better.

as if they are now a common part of the average persons lexicon

I imagine the article isn’t written for the average person, but instead a specific demographic that you find yourself not a part of.

This isn’t a bar. This is too people joking in their living room. Or at least, that’s how Snapchat conditions you into treating the space.

Your final sentence shows that you know that the first part of your comment is misleading, so It’s curious that you didn’t correct it.

“How they condition you” is irrelevant. You may be “conditioned” to think your little corner of the bar is your private space, but that doesn’t make it so.

This story isn’t a tale of an invasion of privacy, or even a tale of mass surveillance; it’s a tale of people being unable to determine what is private and what isn’t.

I can’t help but wonder if people would be messing this up so badly if it were Snapchat automatically forwarding an alert to the police because they detected an adult soliciting a non adult for sex, or if the police arrived and the teacher was making plans to shoot up a school.

In any event, I’ll save my outrage about invasions of privacy and mass surveillance (both very real concerns) for actual instances where one or both occur.

If she was in a bar and she was venting to her friends about shooting students or shooting up a school and the bartender heard her and contacted the police, would you call it an invasion of privacy?

The real story is that people consider unencrypted messages on Snapchat “private”.

I have an mp3 player that I occasionally use, but much more frequently I’m streaming my music to my phone from my Plex server.