Bipartisan senators call for Instagram to shut down its new map feature, citing children’s safety concerns

Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., are pushing for Instagram’s new map feature to be shut down, raising questions about potential risks to children’s safety.

In a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Friday, the lawmakers argued that children could be put in harm’s way after the rollout of the new map tool, which allows users to share their live location with their followers.

“For years, we have sounded the alarm regarding real-time location sharing on social media platforms— specifically when it comes to underage users—and we again urge you to protect children’s safety instead of potentially exposing their location to dangerous individuals online, including pedophiles and traffickers,” the letter reads.

Instagram users can opt in to using the map tool and may also select which followers can see their locations, Meta said in a press release. Users may turn the feature off at any time. A user’s location is updated whenever they open the app or return to the app if it has been running in the background.

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The new feature is turned off until a user opts in, the press release noted.

Meta also said parents with supervision set up for their child’s app will receive a notification if their child starts sharing their location.

“If you’re a parent with supervision set up for your teen, you have control over their location sharing experience on the map,” the press release said. “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.”

Instagram head Adam Mosseri also said on Thursday that the company is working on design improvements “as quickly as possible.”

But despite Meta’s assertion that users’ locations will stay turned off unless they enable the new tool, the senators said some people have reported that their location was automatically shared without their consent.

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“This addition is a cause of particular concern for us when it comes to children and teens that are active on Instagram,” the lawmakers wrote. “Meta’s platforms have been consciously designed to prioritize profit over the protection of its most vulnerable users: our children.”

“While Meta has argued that parents with supervision settings on their children’s accounts have control over their location settings, it is clear that existing parental controls are not sufficient,” the letter continued. “Meta has made it difficult for parents to fully understand or utilize parental controls, leading to abuse, exploitation, and victimization of these precious children.”

Blackburn and Blumenthal further argued that Meta’s track record when it comes to protecting children online is “abysmal.”

“As you know, children often accept follow requests from individuals they do not know personally,” the lawmakers wrote. “Allowing children to share their real-time location and more readily displaying where they take pictures to strangers—many of whom may be pedophiles and traffickers—will only increase the dangers children face online due to your inaction.”

The letter accused Meta of “repeatedly” showing that it would always fail to protect children’s lives unless Congress passes legislation.

Blackburn and Blumenthal have previously raised concerns about protecting the safety of children on Meta’s social media platforms, which include Instagram and Facebook.

Last year, the pair sponsored the Kids Online Safety Act, which passed the Senate last summer but did not pass the House. The measure was reintroduced in May. 

The senators also wrote a letter to Meta in April, calling for accountability over allegations that the company is “failing to protect underage users from sexually explicit discussions with a new class of AI-powered digital chatbots.”

“Allowing the geolocation of minors on your platform is just the latest example of this sad reality,” the lawmakers wrote on Friday. “We urge you to immediately abandon Instagram’s map feature and instead institute meaningful protections for children online—they deserve nothing less.”

FOX Business has reached out to Meta for comment.