When you go out somewhere, who do you tell: your partner, maybe? Your roommate? Your kids, or your parents? Your cat? If you\u2019re active on social media, the candid answer is that you\u2019re quite possibly telling everybody among your friends and followers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tracking location is something your phone does all the time, and your social media apps harvest that information for a number of reasons. Some of them are benign and can be useful or downright comforting. Some are less so and can pose a threat to your privacy or even your physical safety. Here\u2019s what you\u2019ll need to know about it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Your mobile device\u2019s hardware and its operating system work together to monitor your location. The primary location tool is your GPS chipset, of course. If you can see the sky from where you are, your phone can determine your location to within a yard or two. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That only works when you\u2019re outdoors and aboveground, so your devices have other tricks they can use for location-finding. One is by monitoring which cellular towers your phone \u201cpings\u201d as you go about your business. Another checks the Wi-Fi networks your phone finds along the way: those locations (IP addresses) can be looked up and used to define your location in something pretty close to real-time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Your device (and your social media app) can even use subtler cues, like your phone\u2019s accelerometer (to tell when you\u2019re in motion) and altimeter (to monitor how far up you\u2019ve gone) to place you accurately on a specific floor of a given building. When you have all of those things enabled, your devices can potentially pinpoint you within a given room. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s be clear that social-media location tracking isn\u2019t necessarily something that\u2019s being done to<\/em> you. The whole point of social media is to provide ways to engage with your friends and family, and the community at large, and your location plays a part in that. There will be many times you\u2019ll deliberately choose to put your location on the record, and your location data is often used in ways that explicitly benefit you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A few of these beneficial uses of your location include: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Obviously, not all of these apply to everyone, and some are fairly niche. Overall, though, there are lots of perfectly good reasons to use location tracking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That being said, there are also a number of compelling reasons why tracking location is bad for you as a user of a given social media platform. There are so many that no list could possibly be comprehensive, but a few of the most obvious include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Keeping location services on, or turning them off, comes down to deciding whether the benefits outweigh your potential exposure to harm. If you decide you\u2019d rather opt out, you\u2019ll need to change those settings. For your convenience, here\u2019s a quick guide to doing that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On a phone running any version of Android up to and including Android 9, tap the Settings icon, then Connections, and finally Location to turn location services on and off (there may be some slight differences between different phones and versions of Android). This turns off location services for all apps, so you\u2019ll need to turn it back on again to use GPS navigation or other location-centric apps. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Newer versions of Android let you control permissions <\/a>on an app-by-app basis, which is much more practical. Tap Settings, then Apps & Notifications and See All Apps. Scroll down the list and tap each of your social media apps, then find and turn off location services for each of them. Alternatively, you can set it to ask every time before using location services or to only allow it while the app is active, but those options aren\u2019t helpful if you always have the app open. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On an Apple device<\/a>, tap Settings, then Privacy, then Location Services. You can turn off Location Services entirely using the toggle at the top of your screen, or leave them on for the phone as a whole but turn them off for specific apps. Scroll down to your social media apps, tap them one after the other and choose whether or when each app can use location services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On a given social media platform, you may need to tweak other settings as well to maximize your privacy. A few examples include: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Facebook has already dropped several location-driven services<\/a> from its platform, including Nearby Friends, Background Location and Location History. Location History will be viewable until August 2022, but if you want to delete it now you can find it in your Profile Settings. You may also want to turn off the \u201cBackground Location\u201d setting (Android app only), which lets Facebook track your location even when you aren\u2019t using the app. Bear in mind that even with Location Services turned off, Facebook will still use tools like your IP address or Wi-Fi connection to guess your location. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Unlike Facebook, Instagram\u2019s<\/a> default is to not use location settings. Turning them off on your phone is all you need to do, but you can manually add a location<\/a> (if you want to) when uploading a photo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Twitter<\/a> makes little use of your location, but there is one setting you might want to look at. Tap Settings, then Privacy and Safety, and then Location Information. You\u2019ll see an option labeled \u201cAdd location information to your Tweets.\u201d If that\u2019s turned on, you can turn it off for more privacy. You also have the option of removing all location information attached to your tweets, if that setting has been turned on until now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s no right or wrong answer here. There are good reasons to allow location sharing and good reasons to block it. Ultimately it\u2019s a very personal choice, like deciding whether to make your account public or private<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On the whole, though, your best bet may be to turn off location services for your social media on at least a trial basis and see what you think.\u00a0 If it turns out that a feature you really like doesn\u2019t work properly with the location turned off, you can simply turn it back on again.\u00a0 Or you may find that two or three apps work perfectly well without location, and only one actually needs it.\u00a0 You won\u2019t know until you try.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n When you go out somewhere, who do you tell: your partner, maybe? Your roommate? Your kids, or your parents? Your cat? If you\u2019re active on social media, the candid answer…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":25892,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[612,614],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guides","category-safety"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Downside of Social Media Location Tracking<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
How To Turn Off Location Tracking<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Android 9 and Previous Versions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Android 10 and Newer Versions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
iOS and iPadOS<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Facebook<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Instagram<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Twitter<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s Entirely Your Decision<\/h2>\n\n\n\n