Instagram rolled out a new map feature this week that quickly prompted privacy and safety concerns among users online.
The “Instagram Map” tool was introduced for users to stay up to date with friends. Meta, the parent company of Instagram, called it “a new, lightweight way to connect with each other.”
Posts quickly began to spread about safety and concerns, with some users quipping in the replies of Meta’s messages about the feature that there’s “no way any women work there.”
Location sharing is off unless users opt in, according to Meta. If someone does opt in, they can control which friends or followers have access to their location.
Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri has been personally responding to some concerned users on Threads, another social media platform owned by Meta. He acknowledged the company needs to do a better job letting users know when they tag a location in a post or story, it shares the actual location and not just the name of the place.
“Nobody is trying to shift blame,” he responded to one concerned user. “Best we can tell most of what’s happening is people are tagging stories and posts with location, and then when they — or their followers — see those stories and posts on the map they assume the author is sharing their live location, which is not the case. We can, and will, make it easier to understand exactly what’s happening."
He added his own approach to using the feature: “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.”
The company hopes to release improvements to the feature early next week, he wrote on Threads.
