[Daviey]

It's an /assumption/ that British intelligence able to read and flag private Snapchat messages, as the article literally states, "The trial did not make clear how the British services managed to have access to Verma's private messages, the judge stressed."

The truth is, it isn't public knowledge how this unfolded and anything suggesting otherwise is conjecture.

Also, this post doesn't' reflect the article title, "Spanish judge clears British teen of Menorca flight bomb hoax charges".

[chatmasta]

If we're speculating, a much more likely explanation is that Snapchat moderation teams monitor certain words in certain areas, flagging for example any message containing "bomb" sent from an airport.

This is arguably even creepier than government surveillance, since it implies Snapchat employees are looking at the content of private chats and the user may never know.

[udev4096]

I'm surprised the amount of trust you put in Snapchat and likewise companies whose sole purpose is to maximize their profit by selling user data

[tgv]

It also means that there's no encryption, or the key is known to Snapchat employees (and therefore to everybody who has enough money).

[the_gipsy]

Might be automated, but still, a corporation controls what gets flagged.