Instagram launched a real-time location-sharing feature called Instagram Map to 170 million users, but many maps appear empty and adoption is low. Meta marketed the feature as a "new, light way to connect", yet users express privacy and safety concerns given Meta's history of data mismanagement and regulatory fines. Users view Instagram as a public, curated broadcasting platform, while location sharing is intimate and better suited to close contacts. Several people discovered they were the only visible connection or were unintentionally sharing with acquaintances and promptly disabled the feature. Instagram leadership clarified the map is opt-in.
While Instagram's parent, Meta, has billed the feature as a "new, light way to connect", many users are finding themselves alone on the map, prompting a quiet battle between the platform and its user base over privacy, purpose and trust. The feature, which allows users to share their real-time location with friends, isn't entirely new. But Meta has a history of privacy issues and data mismanagement that has cost Zuckerberg billions in fines. This makes the introduction of a location-tracking feature particularly unsettling for users.
The core of the issue lies in the contrast between what Instagram is and what its 'map' feature tries to make it. Instagram has long been "a broadcasting service for your life", as Law noted, a platform for curated, public-facing content. But location sharing, on the other hand, is an intimate act typically reserved for close friends and family. This disconnect is at the heart of the feature's emptiness.
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