Warning: New SnapChat Feature Shares Your Child’s Location-Truth!
Summary of eRumor:
Parents have been warned that a new SnapChat feature shares your child’s location with other users by displaying it on a map.
The Truth:
A new SnapChat feature allows users to see the locations of all their contacts displayed on a map — but it’s easy for users to opt-out of location sharing.
Parents received a flurry of warnings that a new SnapChat feature shares your child’s location with other users in reports appearing in news markets across the United States, Canada, and police in England even issued a warning bout SnapChat’s new location sharing feature.
SnapChat rolled out its new “Snap Map” on June 21, 2017, with a press release and video that showed users looking at a map to see which friends were close by to them, and what those friends were doing. The company describes the feature as a way to “find your friends, and get inspired to go on a new adventure”:
It’s easy to get started — just pinch to zoom out and view the Map! You decide if you want to share your location with friends, or simply keep it to yourself with Ghost Mode.
If your friends are sharing their location with you, their Actionmoji will appear on the Map. Actionmojis only update when you open Snapchat.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvl82FfnUvw[/embedyt]
It should be noted that SnapChat is a closed social media network. You’re not able to search or view the user profiles or posts of people who are outside of your network, which would eliminate the danger of strangers using the Snap Map feature to track children. Also, as stated in the release, SnapChat users have to choose to share their location with their friends — so while claims that a new SnapChat feature shares your child’s location are true, it only shares their location with specific friends that they’ve approved.
Still, warnings that SnapChat now shares users’ location information are true, and at least one law enforcement agency has issued a public warning about the dangers of it. Concerned parents should check their children’s SnapChat settings and ensure that they’re in “Ghost Mode” to prevent their location from being displayed.