Bipartisan lawmakers are calling on Meta to abandon its recently launched Instagram Map feature, citing significant child safety and privacy concerns just days after the feature’s rollout.

U.S. senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on August 8 urging the company to “immediately abandon” Instagram’s new Map feature. The senators, who co-sponsored the Kids Online Safety Act, specifically highlighted risks to minors who might expose their location to “dangerous individuals online, including pedophiles and traffickers.”

“Allowing children to share their real time location and more readily displaying where they take pictures to strangers will only increase the dangers children face online due to your inaction,” the senators wrote in their letter to Zuckerberg.

The lawmakers described Meta’s track record on child protection as “abysmal,” referencing recent reports of AI chatbots engaging in sexually explicit conversations with minors and algorithms that allegedly promote inappropriate content.

Feature Functionality and Privacy Controls

The Map feature, launched August 7, provides what Meta calls a “lightweight” method for users to connect with each other by allowing people to share their location in real time. Users can access maps through their direct message inbox.

Meta emphasizes that “location sharing is off unless you opt in,” with Instagram head Adam Mosseri stating he personally uses “the map to share what I’m up to with a handful of my closest friends, and I curate that list carefully.”

The feature includes several privacy controls. Users can select specific followers who see their location, and parents with supervision settings can receive notifications when teens share their location. Additionally, location updates only when users open the app or it runs in the background, and sharing can be disabled at any time.

User Confusion and Concerns

Despite Meta’s assurances about privacy controls, the rollout has sparked confusion among users. Some reported that their geotagged stories appeared on Instagram Map even when they opted out of sharing their live location.

Instagram clarified in a statement: “The reason you’re seeing your story, post, or reel show up on the map is because you’ve tagged it with a location. It will appear on the map for 24 hours and does not share your real-time or live location.”

Mosseri acknowledged the confusion, writing that “people are seeing stories where people have added a location and assuming the author is sharing their live location. We’ll get out a few design improvements as quickly as possible.”

Broader Safety Implications

Content creators and social media experts have voiced additional concerns about the feature’s impact on vulnerable groups. Caitlin Sarian, known as “cybersecuritygirl” to her 1.4 million Instagram followers, warned in a video post: “When you’re constantly broadcasting where you are in real time, you’re sharing your daily routines… where you live, where you work, literally everything about you to potential hackers, stalkers, bad exes.”

Lia Haberman, author of the social media newsletter ICYMI, told NBC News that “user data is Meta’s golden goose,” expressing concern that users might not realize the full extent of what they’ve provided Instagram access to.

The Instagram Map feature resembles Snapchat’s Snap Map, which currently has over 400 million monthly active users. The feature represents part of Instagram’s broader strategy to enhance user connections, alongside new repost functionality and a Friends tab in Reels.

Meta has not yet publicly responded to the senators’ letter demanding that the feature be discontinued.