Complaint in the Senate against Meta: Seeking to reverse Instagram's map feature
The bipartisan proposal is from Senators Marsha Blackburn and Richard Blumenthal, who sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg on Capitol Hill/ Brendan Smialowski
Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) seek to reverse an Instagram feature. In a letter sent to Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, the bipartisan duo alleges that the app's new maps feature puts online privacy at risk.
Blackburn and Blumenthal, who previously worked together on drafting the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), claimed that the feature puts children's safety at risk by "exposing their location to dangerous individuals online, including pedophiles and traffickers."
"Instagram’s new Map feature will share a user’s last active location with other individuals using the application. While Meta has argued that the feature is inactive unless users opt in to sharing their location, some consumers have reported that their location was automatically shared without their consent. This addition is a cause of particular concern for us when it comes to children and teens that are active on Instagram," Blackburn and Blumenthal continued in the letter, first obtained by NBC.
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Before sending this letter, Meta argued that users must register to use the mapping tool and can cancel at any time. They even remarked that users can choose which followers can access their location.
However, the senators cited some actual cases in which certain users complained that their location had been shared without their express consent.
"Your company has repeatedly shown that it will always fail to protect children's lives—unless we pass legislation like the bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act. Allowing the geolocation of minors on your platform is just the latest example of this sad reality. We urge you to immediately abandon Instagram's map feature and instead institute meaningful protections for children online—they deserve nothing less," they stated.
The key takeaways from the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA)
The bill was designed to prevent cases of self-harm, suicide, eating disorders and substance abuse by minors by providing youth and parents with the tools they need to protect themselves from online harm.
While it had already been passed in the Senate by the last Congress, legislative and election circumstances delayed its vote in the House of Representatives. At that time, it received strong bipartisan support, passing the Senate with 91 votes in favor in late July 2024.
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