Snapchat Temporarily Disables 'Heatmap' in Ukraine
Snapchat is working to make Snap Map, the location-based feature to which people can submit photos and videos they want to make publicly available, safer for users in Ukraine.
"As a safety precaution we have temporarily disabled the Snap Map’s 'heatmap' of public Snaps in Ukraine," the company says. "We will continue to offer curated Stories comprised of Snaps submitted in Ukraine."
Why remove the heatmap from Snap Map in Ukraine? Well, because the feature is used to indicate areas where Snapchat users are publicly sharing a lot of content, and Russia could use that information to determine potential targets during its ongoing invasion of the country.
That's made all the more likely by the fact that Snap Map doesn't require a Snapchat account; the web version is freely available to anyone looking for publicly shared content. The only way to prevent that heatmap from being abused is to disable the feature entirely in Ukraine.
Snap Map currently lists Stories for three cities—Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Lviv—in Ukraine. All three feature Snaps posted over a week ago, however, which suggests that Snapchat isn't highlighting more recent content at this time. Snap didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
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