Snap has announced that it will temporarily shut down Snapchat’s “heat map” feature in Ukraine so that the app no longer displays the number of snaps taken in a particular location. The company said the move was “a safety precaution” while still providing a curated public snapshot of information submitted by Ukrainians.
Typically, Snap maps display a color code to show how many people are posting public images in an area. In practice, this means that people can get a good idea of where Snapchat users are concentrated.
While such publicly available data is generally meaningless (it’s not surprising that more people post from downtown Seattle than the nearby National Forest), in a wartime situation, Russian invaders might want to track evacuations or movement of people, Turning this feature off is probably the best option.
Other companies have made similar moves, making it harder for Ukrainians to be tracked through public information — Google shut down real-time traffic information in Ukraine, as did Apple.
After Russia invaded Ukraine, Snap also took some additional actions. According to a press release from the company, it has stopped showing ads in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine and will not sell ad space to Russian operating entities.