Latest news with #InstagramMap
Boston Globe
2 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Instagram Map lets your friends, and possibly exes, track your every move
Get Love Letters: The Newsletter A weekly dispatch with all the best relationship content and commentary – plus exclusive content for fans of Love Letters, Dinner With Cupid, weddings, therapy talk, and more. Enter Email Sign Up Sharing your real-time whereabouts with friends can sound fun, and is popular among younger users with apps such as Apple's FindMy or on the Snapchat app's Snap Map. But relationship and parenting experts warn location sharing can also turn into a stressful or even dangerous form of control. Advertisement This is a big privacy shift for Instagram. It's going from an intentional sharing experience - where you decide when and what to post - to an always-on, background sharing experience. Instagram called the function 'a new, lightweight way to connect,' in its launch announcement. How to stop it To make sure you're not on Instagram Map, select 'no one' under 'Who can see your location' in its settings. Also, don't actively tag location on your posts, stories and reels. And even better, stop Instagram from collecting location data about you by going to your phone's settings, selecting privacy, then location, and turning off location for Instagram entirely. Advertisement Instagram Map offers some controls: You choose whether to share your location with all friends (defined as followers who you follow back), your 'close friends' group or only to specifically selected friends. There are also options to not share location in specific places, with specific people or for a specific period of time. That's an awful lot to manage. Unless you actively keep track, you could end up sending your location to exes, professional contacts or even real friends who might feel left out of an activity that doesn't include them. Here's a bit of good news: Instagram says the longest it will hold onto location data you share for the map would be three days. It also tells me it doesn't use a user's last active location from the feature to target ads. How location sharing could go wrong The biggest risk is broadcasting information you'd never intentionally post about, from a doctor's visit to a date, says Tracy Chou, the founder of an app called Block Party that helps people clean their social media settings. 'This feels like the same playbook they've used to get us to overshare in the past - promise that it's easy to be in control of your sharing, but make it so that in practice you default into oversharing because it's too tedious to fine-tune both who sees things and what they see,' she says. Common Sense Media, a child advocacy nonprofit, tells me families should approach both Instagram Map and Snap Map with caution because it brings real safety risks. Location data is sensitive because it reveals patterns about where people go regularly, including their home, school or job. Advertisement 'When teens share their exact location, they're potentially telling strangers where they are in real time. This creates opportunities for harassment, stalking, or worse,' says Common Sense senior director Robbie Torney. Location sharing can also create social pressure around where teens go and who they spend time with. A 2023 research report from Common Sense found that location sharing was viewed by girls as one of the most-negative aspects of social media. Instagram offers parents some control if they've set up a so-called Teen Account. They get a notification if their teen starts sharing their location, can decide whether their teen has access to location sharing - and get to see with whom who their teen is sharing location. (Parents do not, by default, get access to their teen's location.) Common Sense recommends families talk about location sharing and turn it off. 'If teens want to let specific people know where they are, they can send a direct message rather than broadcasting their location,' says Torney. That advice applies to adults, too. Surveilling the location of a romantic partner can lead to uncomfortable power dynamics and even the risk of abuse. Research published in May by Australia's eSafety commissioner found that 19 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds in that country thought it was reasonable to expect to track the location of an intimate partner. It warned this could contribute to manipulation and control. If you have a good reason to share your location with someone, such as caring for an elder adult or temporarily keeping track of friends you're vacationing with, there are much better ways to do so than Instagram Map. The iPhone's FindMy and Messages app, for example, let you share your location directly, and gives you the option from the start to limit it to just one hour or until the end of the day. Advertisement
CBS News
2 hours ago
- CBS News
Why is Instagram's new Map feature controversial, and should you disable it?
A new feature on Instagram that let's users share their real-time physical location with others on the app has privacy experts concerned over the amount of data exposed and potential safety risks to users. Called Instagram Map, the new feature was introduced on Thursday as part of an app update. On its blog, the company says the location-sharing tool makes it "easier for you and your friends to stay in touch through the content you're enjoying on Instagram." "You can opt into sharing your last active location with friends you pick, and you can turn it off anytime," Instagram said in a blog post announcing the new feature. "You can also open the map to see content your friends and favorite creators are posting from cool spots. No matter how you use the map, you and your friends have a new, lightweight way to connect with each other." In a statement shared with CBS MoneyWatch Friday, Instagram's parent company, Meta, emphasized that Instagram Maps is not automatically active upon updating the app and that users must opt-in to the location-sharing feature in order to make their whereabouts visible to others. "Instagram Map is off by default, and your live location is never shared unless you choose to turn it on. If you do, only people you follow back — or a private, custom list you select — can see your location," a Meta spokesperson said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch. Users can also choose not to share their locations when they are in particular places, or with particular people. Still, privacy experts say that social media users aren't always aware of how much information they're sharing with an app or its users, even if they have the ability to limit who sees what. "The more these location features are rolled out on social media it carries out the assumption that as long as you give users the ability to toggle them on and off that they'll know exactly how to do that," Douglas Zytko, an app safety expert and associate professor at the College of Innovation & Technology at the University of Michigan-Flint, told CBS MoneyWatch. "But the average user isn't always aware of their privacy settings and if they match their preferences." When the Instagram Map feature is turned on, any content a user posts with a location tagged, including a reel, post or story, will show up on the app's map for 24 hours, according to the Instagram blog. While the feature remains on, the user's location is updated whenever they open the app or return to it. The feature can be turned off at any time. In an Instagram post discussing the feature, Instagram's head, Adam Mosseri, explains how he himself uses the map. "Personally, I use the map to share what I'm up to with a handful of my closest friends, and I curate that list carefully," he said. On Threads, Meta's microblogging site, a number of Instagram account holders claimed that their locations were being pinned on friends' maps by default. Mosseri weighed in, saying the concerns prompted the company to re-examine how the feature works. "We're double-checking everything, but so far it looks mostly like people are confused and assume that, because they can see themselves on the map when they open, other people can see them too," he said. "We're still checking everything though to make sure nobody shares location without explicitly deciding to do so, which, by the way, requires a double consent by design (we ask you to confirm after you say you want to share)." In the top right corner of the app, tap on the messaging function. There you will see a circular world map icon labeled "map. If you click on the icon, you will see you're on location pinned on a map. Friends who are sharing their locations will also appear. Click on the gear icon to choose to share your location with no one, or a custom list of friends, or all of your friends — who are followers that you also follow back on the app. Zytko, however, said it can be complicated for social media users to manage privacy settings that let them share different kinds of content with different groups of people. "This issue is called 'context collapse,'" he said. "Your co-workers see your social media posts, and your friends and family, and there is certain content you only want some groups to see but not others, and it can be hard to manage the visibility of content." Robbie Torney, senior director of AI programs at Common Sense Media, which makes entertainment and technology recommendations for families, said location-sharing features can be particularly risky for younger app users. "These features might feel fun and social, but they create unnecessary risks that teens and many adults don't necessarily understand," he told CBS MoneyWatch. While parents who supervise their teens through controls built into the app can control their kids' location-sharing settings, he still has concerns about the kinds of social pressures such features expose teens, too. Torney said research at Common Sense Media shows that location-sharing also creates "social pressures around where teens go and who they spend time with, and kids feel obligated to share location to show they are someplace cool." Furthermore, when teens share their locations, "they are potentially telling strangers where they are in real time," Torney told CBS MoneyWatch. "If you're not selective about who you're sharing your location with, it creates opportunities for harassment, stalking or worse."
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Here's What Parents Need To Know About That New Instagram Map Feature
Yes, it's intrusive. And yes, you can turn it off. It feels like every couple of weeks, one of our devices pings us about an update. Whether it takes a couple of minutes or overnight for the updates to complete, it's usually a minor annoyance where we don't usually have to dig into the details of what's new. But after the latest round of updates to Instagram, one of the most widely-used social platforms, one particular addition has a lot of folks' attention. What Is Instagram Map? Instagram Map is a new feature that went live on the platform on August 6, 2025. META announced via a release that same day that the launch is part of what it's calling new ways for users to better connect with friends on Instagram. Essentially, the feature allows you to share your last active location with accounts you choose. It also allows you to see content (Reels, posts, and stories) from accounts you follow when they were at places like restaurants, concerts, sporting events, etc, as long as they tag that location. One important distinction is it doesn't appear that location sharing actually shows your live location on the map. It only shows the location of the place you've tagged in your post. So, if you tag a certain restaurant in your post, it will show the location of that restaurant, not where you are at the moment. META does mention that this function will only be active if you choose to "opt in," and you can turn it off at any time. If you do opt-in to Instagram Map, here are the customization options: You choose who you share your location with: friends (followers you follow back), Close Friends, only selected friends, or no one. You can choose to not share location in specific places or with specific people. If you use location sharing, your location is updated whenever you open the app or return to the app if it's been running in the background. Parents who have supervision controls set on their teens' accounts can also control their location sharing through Instagram Map. META explains with the following: "You will receive a notification if your teen starts sharing their location, giving you the opportunity to have important conversations about how to safely share with friends. You can decide whether your teen has access to location sharing on the map and see who your teen is sharing their location with." Learn more about how to use the feature here. If your Instagram account is public, you should be able to see the map at the top of your DM inbox. How To Turn off Location Sharing on Instagram Map A feature like this raises some privacy red flags among concerned users, especially parents who worry about others being able to locate their teens' location. Though META says you can turn the feature off at any time, it's understandable if some may still be skeptical about some of the vulnerabilities that lie under the surface. Nonetheless, if you want to know how to turn off the location sharing function on Instagram, do the following: In the Instagram app, go to your DMs page via the arrow at the top right of the home screen. (Instagram Map isn't available on desktop yet.) Select the Map feature at the top of your inbox. Open Settings. Select your location sharing preferences. Here's where you can specify which accounts can see your location and which ones can't. After you make specifications or select that no one sees your location, tap "Update" to save your settings. Read the original article on Parents Solve the daily Crossword
TechCrunch
8 hours ago
- TechCrunch
How to use Instagram Map and protect your privacy
Following Wednesday's launch of Instagram's new Snap Map-like opt-in 'Instagram Map' feature — which lets U.S. users share their most recent active location with others and discover location-based content — Instagram head Adam Mosseri is having to reassure people that their location is only visible to others if they decide to share it. Although Meta has made it clear that location sharing is off by default, there have been numerous posts on social media urging users to turn off location sharing, incorrectly claiming that it's automatically turned on. 'We're double checking everything, but so far it looks mostly like people are confused and assume that, because they can see themselves on the map when they open, other people can see them too,' Mosseri said in a Threads post. 'We're still checking everything though to make sure nobody shares location without explicitly deciding to do so, which, by the way, requires a double consent by design (we ask you to confirm after you say you want to share).' Mosseri also said that some people are 'confused' about how the feature works. For instance, people are accessing the feature and then seeing the map populated with the location information of some users. This is because the feature automatically pulls in location tags from recently posted Stories or Reels that include a tagged location. It's worth noting that this isn't new, as Instagram already had location tags visible to users in its map view. However, the new Instagram Map feature makes this information a lot easier to access. The new feature might make you rethink whether you want to post your Stories and Reels with location tags (especially if you're still at the location). If you turn on your location on Instagram Map, your location only updates when you open the app or have it running in the background, meaning it doesn't provide continuous, real-time location updates. This is different from Snap Map, which lets users choose whether their location is updated only when they open the app or in real time. For those who want to ensure their location is turned off on Instagram Map, we'll walk you through the steps below. How to access Instagram Map Image Credits:Instagram To access the new feature, you need to navigate to your DMs page (direct messages) and tap the new 'Map' option at the top. If it's your first time accessing the feature, you'll likely see a pop-up message notifying you about the new Map. The pop-up will tell you that no one can see your location until you share it with them, and that you can change your settings at any time. How to set your location-sharing preferences Image Credits:Instagram The first time you open Map, you will see a page that reads 'Who can see your location.' From there, you can choose to share it with your Friends (followers you follow back), your Close Friends list, select users, or no one. To change your preferences, you need to click on your profile, tap the settings option in the top-right corner, select the 'Story, live and location' option, and then tap the 'Location sharing' button. Here, you will be able to change your settings. Note that if you have location sharing turned off, others can still share their location with you, which means you'll be able to see them on the Map. How to use Instagram Map When you open the app, you will see the locations of friends who have shared their location with you. You will also see location-based Stories and Reels from people you follow. For example, if your friend attended a nearby music festival and posted a story while there, it will appear on the map. Similarly, if a creator you follow posts a reel about a new restaurant in your city, you'll be able to discover it on Instagram Map. You will still see location-based content on the Map even if you have your location turned off. You also can leave short, ephemeral messages, or 'Notes,' on the map for others to see. Instagram Notes are the short messages that currently appear at the top of your direct messaging feed, but with the launch of Instagram Map, you will now see these posts on the map if they're shared with a location. This story was updated with new information.
The Verge
8 hours ago
- The Verge
Instagram's Map is here, and this is how you can turn it off
It's only been a couple of days since the Instagram Map launched, and from the looks of our social feeds, people are not happy about it. Responses have ranged from being mildly annoyed that Instagram is ripping off Snapchat's Snap Maps instead of offering a default feed that only contains your friends' posts, to high alert outrage about possibly privacy implications and doxing, as well as how domestic violence victims or others could be put at risk of stalking via the app. Meta says the feature is an 'opt-in' only way to share your active location with the friends you choose, or a way to browse the content friends and creators are posting, organized by the locations tagged to their posts and Reels. If the only thing you want to do is turn Instagram Maps location sharing off, here's Instagram's instructions on how to make sure the feature is disabled within the app (on both Android and iOS): If you haven't enabled location access for Instagram, Meta says that the map feature is disabled by default, and you won't be able to access the settings since it doesn't have access to that data. According to Instagram boss Adam Mosseri, people are seeing location-tagged posts and Reels that are also included in the map UI, and assuming that indicates a live-tracked location. 'Your last reel is showing up on the map, not your current location. Your live location is not being shared, and it will never be unless you decide to share it,' writes Mosseri. In another post, he promised, 'We'll get out a few design improvements as quickly as possible,' potentially by next week. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Richard Lawler Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All How to Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Instagram Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Meta Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All News Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Privacy Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Tech
