Last week, we all learned that we’re probably sharing way more data in our Facebook Messages than we thought. In a detailed Medium post, a now-employee of Facebook explained how he built an extension that takes the location of people you message on Facebook and plots it on a map, making it incredibly easy to track their whereabouts.
But now Facebook says it’s trying to make location an up-front feature of Messenger instead of a hidden consequence. “Now you can choose to explicitly send a map of your location or another particular place as a separate message,” Facebook Head of Product for Messenger Stan Chudnovsky wrote in an announcement. The “More” icon or location pin will pull up an option to show your location to the person you’re messaging with. “You only send a location when you tap on the location pin and then choose to send it as a separate message. You can also share a location---like a meeting spot---even if you’re not there.”
It’s a cool and useful new features, but lessened if you've unwittingly been outing your whereabouts via Messenger. When you first downloaded the app, Facebook asked if you wanted to share your location---which you may not remember. In general, it's best practice to head to your phone's settings and then scroll down to Facebook, where you can change to “while using the app” or “never.” Do the same with the Messenger mobile app and choose “never” (if that’s what you want, of course). Making your location information known within Messenger happens on a per-thread basis, Facebook says, meaning it's on or off depending on your preference and phone (on for Android, off for iOS)---though it's likely you didn't know this, as I learned when I asked a variety of my friends whether they were aware they'd chosen to share with me where they were (the answer was a "no," every time.)1
If you have had location on, a simple tap of your last message sent via mobile revealed your location, like so:
It’s similar to what happened when Instagram first launched its mapping feature: All those geo-tagged selfies you took? Yeah, we could all see that you were at home. Overnight, it suddenly became very, very easy to find out where somewhere lived or spent their time.
Though Facebook’s update means you can now choose not to share your location, it’s undeniably frightening it was sharing it without asking all along.
Out of curiosity, I went through and starting tapping on the messages of my own friends to see if they were sharing their locations. I told them so if there were---and reactions ranged from “lol idk” to “I hate Facebook, this could have gotten me murdered.” One friend told me she often uses Facebook to sell things, like you would Craigslist---and she would never have chosen to give strangers her home address. Another told me she constantly fibs about where she is (i.e. “I swear I’m on my way” when she’s actually still at home getting ready), and Facebook has been outing her all along.
The Messenger Location is just the latest in a long string of times Facebook has had to correct something it should have been doing all along. When it comes to personal data and privacy, everything should be opt-in.
1UPDATE 3:50 PM ET 06/205/15: Updated to include comments from Facebook, which clarified that for Android users, Messenger location was on by default, and off for iOS users (prior to this new update).
