Nadia Sawalha has taken to social media to spread the word about a new Snapchat function that she’s branded “frightening”.
‘Snap Maps’ – or as her 14 year-old daughter Maddie calls it, ‘Stalk your friends’ – allows users to see exactly where their friends are, even knowing when they are in the car.
Maddie talked to camera alongside her presenter mum to explain how the feature worked.
“Snapchat automatically updated me and I wasn’t aware that it was on, being that people in that moment could see what I was doing,” said Maddie.
“I could see that my friend Leah was listening to music, someone else was sleeping…”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BWDl6qyDGPS/?taken-by=nadiaandkaye&hl=en
People can see when you’re sleeping? That’s creepy.
Maddie’s mother and presenter Nadia evidently felt strongly about getting the message about Snap Maps out there.
She added a comment on her Instagram post – a shortened version of the original video – saying “PARENT ALERT!!!! If your child uses Snapchat you MUST watch this. They’ve introduced a new feature SnapMaps and it’s truly frightening what it does.
“Please tag all the parents you have kids in the comments to make sure both parents and kids are educated about this!”
She also gave some advice to parents who might be at home scrolling through and worrying about the feature.
“Check that your children are on ghost mode because it’s really dangerous,” she advised.
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Ghost mode is where you turn the feature off so no-one else can see your location.
Nadia also pointed out the other issues aside from safety that could come up by ‘stalking’ your friends.
“So, super creepy,” she said. “I mean control issues or what? Also what if you don’t get invited to the party and you see all your friends are at another party?
“I just think it’s disgusting. This is so dangerous. This is a step too far. I am completely horrified by this, but what do you think? Am I being a really overprotective mother?”
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A Snapchat spokesperson hit back at concerns with a statement, which said: “The safety of our community is very important to us and we want to make sure that all Snapchatters, parents and educators have accurate information about how the Snap Map works.
“With Snap Map, location-sharing is off by default for all users and is completely optional.
“Snapchatters can choose exactly who they want to share their location with, if at all, and can change that setting at any time.
“It’s also not possible to share your location with someone who isn’t already your friend on Snapchat, and the majority of interactions on Snapchat take place between close friends.”
And hopefully not with your boss on the day you told her you had an ‘early doctor’s appointment.’ Ahem.