The deployment of a new Map of Instagram has caused confusion among some users of the application, who expressed their online privacy concerns after the goal made the function known.
The purpose of the MAPS function, according to a finish line, is to provide a “light” method for users to connect with each other and explore local events by allowing people to share where they are in real time. Users can access their “maps” going to their DMS.
When users click on the map, it shows the geolocation of users who have chosen to share their location, according to the last time they opened Instagram or shared an Instagram story. When users open the map for the first time, options for “who can see their location” are asked for options, which allows them to choose whether they want to share their location or not.
After the function was presented on Wednesday, users began sharing screenshots of how the map looks in their pages. A handful of positions criticizing the function have accumulated hundreds of thousands of views as they circulate through X, Threads, Tiktok and Instagram. Some of the most viral publications were from people such as the influencer and the student of the “Bachelor” Kelley Flanagan franchise, who issued a warning to people online to turn off their location, suggesting that it could be a risk for their privacy and security.
“Meta has a poor history when it comes to data privacy,” said Lia Haberman, author of the IMYMI Social Network Bulletin, A NBC News in an email interview.
Just this week, Haberman pointed out that a jury from California ruled that Meta violated the State Privacy Invasion Law in a case involving the application monitoring of Flo. (A Meta spokesman told CNBC that the company did not agree with the ruling).
“The user data is Golden Goose of Meta, it is what they have been able to sell to advertisers for years, mostly ethical and legal but not always,” said Haberman.
Meta emphasized that “the exchange of locations is off unless he opts. If he shares his location with friends, he has controls to customize this experience.” Users can select specific followers who see their location, or those on their list of “close friends.”
The Instagram head, Adam Mosseri, doubled that feeling, writing in a thread publication that he uses “the map to share what I am doing with a handful of my closest friends, and heals that list carefully.”
Even so, Haberman, he said, worries that users do not realize the total extension of what they have provided to Instagram, or when their location could appear on the map, through the labeling of places in their publications or simply open the application.
The platform is not the first to introduce such locations exchange capabilities. Many young social media users have used a similar feature in the Snapchat application, where “Snap Map” has been in their place since June 2017. Some users of social networks also compared Instagram maps with the SWARM application of Foursquare, once popular, which allowed users to “register” in their favorite places, discover new points and stay connected with friends.
In recent years, Instagram and other social media platforms have faced a scrutiny of legislators and organizations on online security, particularly around adolescent users.
With Maps, Meta says that their supervision characteristics allow parents to be notified when a teenager begins to share their location, and can turn off their teenager’s access to the function at any time, if they use parental target controls. (Although many teenagers keep hidden accounts to their parents).
Common Sense Media, a group that studies the impact of media and technology on children and families, published a report in 2023 that found that the exchange of locations on social networks platforms, which defined as “automatic exchange of users’ locations”, had two possible negative experiences for young women users. There are “concerns about security,” the group wrote, as well as the “fear of getting lost (” fomo “) or social exclusion” among users. But the positive impact could be “social connection.”
Even so, “girls were more likely to say that the exchange of locations (45%) and public accounts (33%) have had a mainly negative effect on them, compared to other characteristics,” the report found.
In 2024, after the media reported for the first time about Instagram’s plans to develop a “map of friends”, several legislators issued concerns about how this type of characteristic could cause damage to younger users.
“Instagram’s proposal feature will require the monitoring of young people and the locations of their devices,” wrote the representative Kathy Castor, D-Fla., And the representative Lori Trahan, D-Mass., He wrote in a letter of May 21, 2024 to Mosseri, calling for the surveillance of the geolocation of the retailers “an unnecessary violation of privacy.”
Senator Marsha Blackburn, R-Ten., Also responded to the “Amigos Map” Development Reports last year, writing in an X publication in March: “We should be doing everything possible to protect the safety of our children on social networks, without exposing their real-time location to pedophiles and traffickers.”
Blackburn raised similar concerns about Snap MAP in 2019, writing in a letter to the Evan Spiegel CEO that “if the location is left in public mode, Snap Map can reveal the location of the users of credulous children to complete strangers, along with their SNAP video diet.”
At a Senate audience in 2021, Jennifer Stout, Vice President of Global Public Policy of Snap Inc., said the application “makes it intentionally difficult for strangers to find people who do not know. We do not have open profiles, we do not have navigable photos. We do not have the ability to understand who people’s friends are and where they go to school.”
Representatives of the Blackburn, Castor and Trahan offices did not immediately respond to a comment request on Thursday on the official Instagram launch of their new function.
Many Instagram users said they are worried that the new feature can also put other vulnerable groups at risk, including creators, who have very public people, and women, who often face online harassment.
“When you are constantly transmitting where you are in real time, you are sharing your daily routines,” said Caitlin Sarian, known for his 1.4 million Instagram followers as CybersecurityGirl, in a video post on Wednesday. “… where you live, where you work, literally all about yourself with possible computer pirates, stalkers, bad ex, all of the above.”
Another creator, known as NerdyTravelingwriter on Tiktok, echoed similar concerns in a video published Wednesday, qualifying it as a “security problem.”
“Think about how many creators have stalkers,” said the creator, who has more than 895,000 followers in Tiktok. “I am thinking of my followers who have just left abusive relationships. They are still mutual with their abusers.”
The Instagram help center indicates that users can hide their locations in the specific map function if they wish, which could help those who know what profiles may want to use the information for malicious purposes.
“If you see that you have shared its location in the past with Instagram through the phone configuration, it does not mean that the map function is automatically turned on or that people can see their location,” he wrote the platform in his Instagram history. “The reason you see your story, publication or reel that appear on the map is because you have labeled it with a location. It will appear on the map for 24 hours and do not share your location in real or live time.”
When comments on the concerns were requested, a goal spokesman reiterated the Instagram policy, indicating that the map function “is off predetermined, and its live location is never shared unless you choose to turn it on. If you do, only the people who follow, or a private and personalized list you select, you can see your location.”
Haberman, who was among those who published on the recent Instagram news about the threads, suggested that one of the main reasons why the Instagram feature is being received with some criticism is because it was a surprise for users.
“That’s fine for something without bets,” he said. “But a map of people’s locations has an impact on the world very real. We should have care more care.”
