An airline passenger could face a $120,000 bill after fighter jets were scrambled when he joked about blowing up the plane
An airline passenger could face a $120,000 bill after fighter jets were scrambled when he joked about blowing up the plane
My first thought is what is the point of sending fighter jets to deal with a bomb threat?
"Don't you blow up this plane, or else........ we'll blow up this plane."
Bomb threats can be used to get control of the plane and then fly it into stuff. The fighter jet is there to bring down the plane if it seems like they’re trying to 9/11 it.
I think it's more the plane could have gone into a built up area.
Yea. They can do finish blowing it up
Seriously think a little bigger. Why are people commenting this?
Because lemmy is full of 15 year old kids with no experience in the real world
Reminiscent of the Twitter joke trial. Except this obvious joke was made in private, so there's even less excuse for the over-reaction. Useless timewasters.
So if a terrorist makes a private chat, they're immune?
Wut?
It would have been nice if they could have stopped him before he got on the plane. If he was serious, things likely wouldn't have ended well.
“Before departing”- I think he was on the plane when he made the Snapchat comment, but the article is not clear.
It’s possible he was overheard and some stranger who didn’t- and couldn’t- know it was a joke reported him.
edit, from another article:
He admitted to sending a picture with his 'bomb joke' and Taliban comment from a check-in desk at Gatwick Airport, which experts who analysed his phone told the court was shared in a Snapchat group with six other users at 9.47am the day of his arrest and showed him wearing a hat and sunglasses.
so he was at the airport. making terrorist threats. brilliant.
Edit2: Looking into snapchat's content policy, it seems very probably snapchat was the one that reported him to the authorities. From their Community Guidelines:
These Guidelines apply to all content (which includes all forms of communication, like text, images, generative AI, links or attachments, emojis, Lenses and other creative tools) or behavior on Snapchat — and to all Snapchatters. We are particularly sensitive to content or behavior that poses a risk of severe harm to Snapchatters, and reserve the right to take immediate, permanent action against users engaging in such behavior. Additional guidance about what we consider to be severe harm and how we take action against it is available here.
Taking the link hop to the 'additional guidance':
The safety of Snapchatters is our top priority. We take behavior that threatens the safety of our community very seriously, particularly when the threat of harm is severe. We consider severe harm to include both (1) harms that risk significant damage to the physical or emotional well-being of Snapchatters, and (2) the imminent, credible risk of severe harm, including threats to human life, safety, and well-being. We collaborate with experts, safety groups, and law enforcement on these topics in order to better educate ourselves and our community, and to take appropriate action where these threats may arise on our platform. We consider these types of harms to merit a heightened level of scrutiny, as well as swift, strict, and permanent consequences for violators.
When we identify Snapchatters engaging in any of the following activities, we immediately disable their accounts and, in some instances, refer the conduct to law enforcement:
- Activity that involves sexual exploitation or abuse, including sharing child sexual exploitation or abuse imagery, grooming, child or adult sex trafficking, or sexual extortion (sextortion)
- Attempted selling, exchanging, or facilitating sales of dangerous and illicit drugs
- Credible, imminent threats to human life, safety, or well-being, which may include violent extremism or terrorism-related activities, human trafficking, specific threats of violence (such as a bomb threat), or other serious criminal activities
In addition to enforcing stricter consequences for these violations, our internal teams are continually working with experts to better understand how we can detect and limit threats, prevent harm, and stay informed of potentially harmful trends. Our work on this topic is never finished and it will continue to evolve with the needs of our community. We invite you to report a safety concern, visit our Safety Center, or learn more about our efforts to address harmful content and promote wellness.
Emphasis is mine.
When you're in a group chat in Snapchat, Snap always has an ear on the group.
Suggesting anything illegal at an airport or border crossing is off-limits for me, no jokes, even with family/friends. I thought people knew better.
Now if only we fined companies proportionally for saftey violations...
"The intention was never to cause public distress or cause public harm," Verma told the court.
That moment, the kid realised some joke is off-limit and could have serious consequences.
a private joke?
Unfortunately, an app and justice will not differentiate between a joke and real, once it tripped either of this system then you pay the consequences. If you wanna joke about this, joke irl.
What was private about it?
private jokes made in public aren't private. (this was sent from the check in counter of the airport.)
One 18-year-old is about to find out the very harsh consequences of being an adult.
So, wait a minute. This kid makes a private joke among friends, and his message is intercepted by security services and obviously taken out of context (in that they failed to realize he was privately joking among friends).
Seems to me that the security forces should eat the cost of this. This is the price you pay for spying on everyone and overreacting.
The kid didn't say this publicly
Even if this was a real terrorist, this is the worst move security services could've done.
They could bar a suspected terrorist from entering the plane via a temporary arrest. If they're wrong, just reimburse the travel costs. If correct, you didn't let a terrorist possibly hijack a plane.
They could use the "randomly selected for a search" card as an excuse for detailed screening. A terrorist can't blow up a plane without some sort of smuggled troublesome equipment anyway. If they're wrong, you spent like 10 minutes searching a random dude. At least you didn't gave a terrorist chance to hijack a plane.
They instead let a suspected terrorist enter the plane as usual; then tailed him with fighter jets. What the actual fuck was the plan if the suspected person was a terrorist? Blow up the fucking plane so all the civilians inside die?
Imagine the call done to the authorities
"This is airport, we've detected a suspicious individual that could be affiliated with a terrorist organization"
"Since you detected him, I assume you've detained him? We'll be sending units"
"Umm... no? Just let him board the plane"
"YOU WHAT?"
Yeah why the fuck were they spying on some 18 year old kid's snapchat?
He wrote:
There's no way that text doesn't get automatically flagged for review by Snapchat.
Because if a terrorist sent that then blew up a plane and they didn't act the public backlash would be insane.
While it's super invasive there are terrorists stupid enough to use services like this to communicate.
Also what's the goal of scrambling jets when the threat is a passenger inside said jet? Are they gonna ask the pilot to pipe the radio to the PA and say "you better not blow up that plane because we're in charge and we said so?" Do they have a sniper on the wing ready to take out just one guy meanwhile depressurizing the whole fuselage, potentially explosively? Maybe Top Gun Tom Cruise can hit the guy with a burst of the 20mm? Seems like there's no point whatsoever. Best case they can say "yep it blew up" or "nope it didn't blow up."
I mean, were there actually a terrorist onboard the plane, I imagine the logic would be "If they hijack it and decide to try to crash it into something 9/11 style, a fighter can at least blow it up in time to prevent more casualties on the ground"
The jets are to shoot down the airliner if it aims towards a dense area, sensitive location, etc.
They'd shoot the plane down if they can't get the pilot to land safely. They'd rather one plane full of innocent passengers gets killed than a plane full of innocent passengers and a building full of even more innocents.
Because if a guy with a bomb manages to persuad the pilot to change course.....
Is anyone stupid enough to think that Snapchat is private? Honest question. It's still a social media platform.
Private enough to use as the primary communication method for my multi-million dollar drug empire? No. Private enough to make a dumb joke to a friend and not expect to become a terrorist? It should be but clearly not
Yeah I would personally tell them to eat shit.
This tends to be ineffective in court.
I'm not sure what this changes. Do actual terrorists make their plans public? IANAT, but I'm pretty sure they discuss and plan their actions privately most of the time.
Besides, look at what he wrote:
If he somehow didn't expect that line of text to get his Snapchat auto-watchlisted, then he's even dumber than originally thought.
Do actual terrorists go around saying “lol I’m a terrorist”? Maybe a little business card with some finely embossed “Taliban Suicide Bomber” printed under their name to hand out to everyone.
I mean yeah most people kinda assume that their private conversations are private, hopefully this will help more people aware that corporations and governments are spying on us all