Bipartisan senators call for Instagram to shut down its new map feature,

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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Instagram’s new map tool allows users to share their live location with their followers. (Getty Images)

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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Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., are pushing for Instagram’s new map feature to be shut down. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images / Getty Images)

“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…