Latest news with #InstagramMaps
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
2 days ago
- Business Standard
Instagram's Map: How to share location, explore posts, and adjust settings
Instagram's new Map feature has rolled out a few days ago, quickly drawing attention for its location-sharing capabilities. According to The Verge, Meta says the feature is opt-in only, allowing people to share their active location with select friends or explore posts and Reels based on tagged locations. The company notes that users have full control over whether to enable location sharing. Although it has sparked a wave of concern among many users regarding privacy concerns. However, as of now, the core Map functionality is only available in select regions, and India is not part of it. Nevertheless, here is the full detail on how it works: Sharing your location with others According to the Instagram support page, when you open Instagram's map for the first time, location sharing is turned off by default. If you decide to enable it, your location will appear on the map at the top of your inbox, as well as in other features like Notes. To use this option, your device's location services must be switched on. If enabled, your location updates whenever you open Instagram and disappear after 24 hours unless you reopen the app. On the map, the following icon means: Blue arrow: Location sharing is on. Red dot: Location sharing is off. Orange triangle: Location permissions need to be enabled. How to turn off your Instagram Map location If you simply want to turn off Instagram Maps location sharing, here's how Instagram says you can disable the feature in the app on both Android and iOS: Tap Messages in the top right of Feed. Tap Map at the top of your inbox. Tap Settings in the top right and select 'no one' Tap Update at the bottom to save your changes. How to send a location request If someone isn't sharing their location with you, you can send them a request, with the following steps Tap the map icon at the top of your inbox. Tap the menu in the bottom right. Tap Request next to their name. You can cancel a pending request anytime. If someone shares their location with you but you have not shared yours, tap Share back to do so. You will get a notification when someone requests to see your location, and you can view all requests by tapping Requests at the top of the list. Instagram mentioned that declining a request will not notify the other person.
Business Insider
5 days ago
- Business Insider
Why Instagram users think a new map feature is sharing their location, even though it isn't.
First things first: Does Meta's new Instagram Maps automatically share your location with everyone? No. It doesn't. The new maps feature, which rolled out this week, does not share your location by default. If you do want to share your location, it will only be visible to your Instagram friends, or a subset of them. Next: Is it reasonable for many Meta users to believe that Instagram Maps automatically shares their location with everyone? Yes. That makes quite a bit of sense. Which is why Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri seems to have spent much of the last two days trying to find every single person who's complaining about the new feature on Instagram and Threads, and explaining that they're wrong. There's a lot of this. And you can get a good sense of the anger the new map feature is generating by checking out this compilation of reactions, helpfully curated by Meta itself. Or, you can just check out Instagram's own Instagram account, which is currently devoted to explaining what it's doing, and not doing — turns out it's extra confusing, because some people who have tagged the location of a particular post are surprised that the post shows up on a map. But like I said: It shouldn't surprise Mosseri or anyone else at Meta when its users start posting about a new, seemingly super-invasive feature the company has rolled out — even if those users are totally mistaken. That's because: 1) Most people don't have any idea of how their phones and software work. 2) Many people dislike Meta, and many think Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is untrustworthy or worse. You can fact-check either of these assertions pretty easily. For example: Ask someone if they think their phone is listening to them, so it can serve them ads. You'll find that many people — even people who ostensibly know something about tech — believe that's true, even though it most definitely is not. And if you don't believe Meta, you can easily find people who are not Meta fans who can also explain why it's not true. And if you want evidence of Meta and Zuckerberg's startling unpopularity, it's just a click away. A staggering two-thirds of Americans have a negative view of Zuckerberg, per Pew Research. And while we're here, we may as well note that social media is really good at spreading false messages about things that seem true, or that people want to seem true. This isn't something we're supposed to spend time worrying about in our new political climate, but it's always been true and it remains true. And it's one of the reasons why, periodically, Meta's users rise up to pass along proclamations about Meta's plans to screw them over. Or to pass along proclamations they think will protect them from Meta screwing them over, even though they're all gibberish. So when Meta rolled out a new feature that lets users share their location with their friends, or a subset of them, it was easy to predict that users might fear the worst — that Meta was doxxing its users without their permission. Perhaps that's why Instagram soft-peddled the feature's launch this week, by quietly listing it alongside other " new features to help you connect with friends," instead of a big flashy rollout. (A Meta rep sent me a statement explaining that location sharing is opt-in only, but I've already explained that above; I've asked Mosseri for comment.) The map itself isn't even obvious on the app at first glance. To find it, look for the messages button on the top right of the screen. My own map tells me that almost no one I follow on Instagram is using this thing, at all. Which makes me wonder why Instagram is bothering with this. Yes, Snap has its own version, and Meta has copied Snap in the past, but Snap's one has been around for years. Why now?
NBC News
5 days ago
- Business
- NBC News
Bipartisan senators urge Meta to roll back Instagram maps feature that sparked uproar
Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Friday calling on the company to 'immediately abandon' Instagram's new Map feature after many app users voiced their privacy concerns online. The purpose of the maps feature, according to a press release from Meta, is to provide a 'lightweight' method for users to connect with each other and explore local happenings by allowing people to share where they are in real time. Users can access their 'maps' by going to their DMs. But after the feature was rolled out on Wednesday, many users began criticizing the feature and suggested it could be a risk to their privacy and safety. Some users were alarmed that their geotagged stories were appearing on Instagram Maps even when they opted out of sharing their live location. Meta has emphasized that 'location sharing is off unless you opt in.' Instagram head Adam Mosseri also said Thursday that the company is aware that 'people are seeing stories where people have added a location and assuming the author is sharing their live location. We'll get out a few design improvements as quickly as possible, which will hopefully help.' Blackburn and Blumenthal, who co-sponsored major legislation aimed at improving online safety for minors, said they are especially concerned that the new feature puts children's safety at risk by 'exposing their location to dangerous individuals online, including pedophiles and traffickers.' NBC News has reached out to Meta for comment. 'While Meta has argued that the feature is inactive unless users opt in to sharing their location, some consumers have reported that their location was automatically shared without their consent,' the senators wrote in their letter. 'This addition is a cause of particular concern for us when it comes to children and teens that are active on Instagram.' Their letter is the latest effort from lawmakers to put pressure on tech companies surrounding online safety, particularly around teen users. Both sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which grilled the CEOs of Meta, TikTok, X and other platforms in a 2024 hearing, accusing the tech giants of not having enough guardrails in place to protect younger users on their platforms. With Maps, Meta says that its supervision features allow parents who use the company's parental controls to be notified when a teen starts sharing their location, and can turn their teen's access off to the feature at any time. Following the 2024 hearing, Discord and Snapchat disclosed to the Senate Judiciary Committee that fewer than 1% of parents use parental controls offered to them on those platforms. Meta declined to provide similar statistics to the committee. Blackburn and Blumenthal said, 'It is clear that existing parental controls are not sufficient.' 'Meta has made it difficult for parents to fully understand or utilize parental controls, leading to abuse, exploitation, and victimization of these precious children,' they wrote. They described Meta's track record on protecting children online as 'abysmal,' referencing reports that the company deployed 'AI chatbots that engaged in sexually explicit conversations with minors' and argued that Meta has continued 'to use kids as products.' 'Allowing children to share their real time location and more readily displaying where they take pictures to strangers — many of whom may be pedophiles and traffickers — will only increase the dangers children face online due to your inaction,' they wrote. They concluded their letter by highlighting their belief in the need for bipartisan legislation, like their Kids Online Safety Act, which was reintroduced in the Senate in May. The bill aims to put more responsibility on social media companies when it comes to protecting users under the age of 17. It also directs companies to allow for more parental controls and to create dedicated pages for users to report malicious content. But the bill's opponents, including free speech and civil liberties groups, warn that it could lead to censorship and is too broadly written. 'We urge you to immediately abandon Instagram's map feature and instead institute meaningful protections for children online —they deserve nothing less,' the senators wrote.
