Snapchat has introduced real-time location sharing, meant to be used as a temporary buddy system, for example, while friends and family are en route to a date or headed home.
“Since 2017, we’ve given Snapchatters the option to choose to share their location with their friends on the Snap Map when using Snapchat, and today more than 250 million Snapchatters now use the Map to connect with their friends each month,” Snapchat said in a press release.
In order to lower the risk of stalking or being pressured to constantly share location, users can pause sharing without sending the other party a notification. For safety reasons, there isn’t an option for users to send their real-time location details to all of their Snapchat friends.
It should be noted that there is no option to send real-time location details to all Snapchat friends at once. Users already have the option to let friends see where they were when they last used the app, which populates the Snap Map — used by 250 million Snapchat users a month.
For this rollout, Snapchat is partnering with It’s On Us, a national nonprofit program focused on stopping campus sexual assault. In addition to the buddy system feature, beginning today Snapchat will include an in-app message about bystander awareness.
(With inputs from agencies)
