New Instagram map feature raises concerns from Connecticut parents, officials

Desmond Milligan · August 13

CONNECTICUT (WTNH) — A new feature on Instagram allowing users to share their location on the app is raising concerns with parents and public officials.

Connecticut’s senior senator is calling it a safety hazard.

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”It may sound innocent and even useful,” U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said in a press conference at New Haven’s Boys and Girls Club about the map feature. ”It exposes kids to pedophiles and traffickers.”

Instagram’s parent company, Meta, stresses that users have to opt in. They say the default setting is to have location sharing turned off. Blumenthal says that does not seem to be the case.

”We’ve received complaints from young people who are alarmed that their location has been shared without their consent,” he said.

If you follow your kids on social media in order to keep track of what they’re posting, and you have not seen your kids share their location, they might still be doing it. That’s because there is a feature with this map that allows users to share their location with just certain friends, and you might not be among them.

“If you have friends that share their location, it mostly would say ‘share with friends,'” 14 year-old Daeshia Freeman said. “But, I don’t know. I wouldn’t share my location on Instagram ever.”

Blumenthal says he wrote Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg a personal letter.

”Saying that he should shut down this map menace. He should do it right away,” Blumenthal said. “Maybe go back to the drawing board, maybe there’s a way to have geolocation sharing that is safe.”

Or, he says, one with functioning parental controls.

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