Snap Maps and Live-Location Stalking

Snap Map is Snapchat's live-location feature, on by default after onboarding. Every Snapchat friend can see the user's location, updated every time the app opens, on a public-style map with the user's Bitmoji avatar. The setting is buried and the privacy implications opaque. Teens with hundreds of 'friends' on Snapchat (most of whom they barely know) are broadcasting their real-time location to all of them, including ex-partners, ex-friends, and strangers added in moments of impulse.

Snapchat — the only platform with this specific feature design. Similar live-location features in iMessage's Find My / shared locations have similar dynamics, though those require explicit sharing.

Snap Map launched in 2017 and has remained largely the same. Privacy advocates and adolescent-safety researchers have urged Snapchat to make the default off for minors; the company has resisted.

• 'Ghost Mode' (Snap Map → Settings → Ghost Mode) makes the user invisible on the map. The setting is easy to flip but most teens never have.
• Most stalking-by-Snap-Map cases involve an ex-partner or ex-friend who had been a Snapchat contact and used the map to track movements after the relationship ended.
• The Bitmoji's status updates ('Driving,' 'At gym,' 'At [School Name]') leak even more than location — they tell what the teen is doing.

• Stalking by abusive ex-partners or controlling friends.
• Predator targeting when a teen's regular locations become known.
• School-related harassment: classmates know when a teen is home, at the mall, alone.

• Turn on Ghost Mode on every teen Snapchat account, today. The setting persists unless changed.
• Audit the friends list periodically. Most teens have hundreds; very few of those should be receiving live location data.
• If stalking is suspected, save evidence (screenshots of the map, of any harassing snaps) and file a police report — the documentation is what makes the case actionable.

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