Imagine you’re out with friends and someone you didn’t invite shows up and casually “bumps into you”.

Imagine checking Snap Map and seeing a group of your friends all in one location, but you didn’t get an invite. Concerns are also being raised about the potential hurt and drama that could unfold from people’s locations being readily available.

The ignorance surrounding how dangerous adding people you don’t know online is now magnified by the fact that the user could, without thinking, broadcast their location to strangers. There are people, particularly younger teens, using Snapchat who won’t think about their safety, who let random people add them and see their stories. People will add people they went to school with, people they met a handful of times, strangers on tinder, friends of friends.

It may seem like common sense to only be friends on Snapchat with people you trust, but it’s a lot easier said than done. Snap Map shows an exact location, so accurate that if you zoom in on a Snapchat friend on the map, it switches to satellite view and you can see exactly where on a street they’re standing, or what building they’re in – and what the building looks like. There are worries over the implications of Snap Map, with debates over the possibilities of stalking, bullying and a threat to users’ safety. Since the update there have been many strong reactions, the majority apprehensive, dubbing the new feature as an uncomfortable invasion of privacy. If the user chooses not to share their location, they can still use the feature with ‘Ghost Mode’, meaning you cannot be seen on the map but you can still track your friends. Snapchat users are asked if they want to share their location with all their friends, a select few of their friends, or with none of them all. Locations are updated every time that person opens the app. Once you’ve updated the app and chosen your location preferences, a simple pinch of the Snapchat camera screen will bring you to a world map, where Snapchat friends’ locations can be seen through little avatars of themselves, and popular areas are highlighted. ‘See what’s happening, find your friends and get inspired to go on an adventure!’ ‘We’ve built a whole new way to explore the world,’ Snapchat began. Snapchat, the world’s leading image messaging app, announced their newest feature in a blog post titled ‘Introducing Snap Map!’

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