The importance of social media platforms in the Russia-Ukraine war has become more and more understandable day by day. A decision was also made by Snapchat for the heatmap, following sanctions from companies like Meta, Twitter, and Google.
Snapchat, which previously announced that it has suspended ads in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, now said it has stopped its Snap Map (Snapchat heatmap) feature for Ukraine. Thanks to this decision, Russian soldiers or the Russian government will be prevented from seeing instant videos/photos in Ukraine.
Snapchat heatmap is down for Ukraine
Snapchat has announced that it’s temporarily shutting down the heatmap feature for Ukraine. According to the company’s statement, this move will prevent Russia from following the images shared instantly in Ukraine during the war.
As The Verge reported, the social media platform said that this change was introduced as a security measure and Snapchat can be used safely by Ukrainians. Turning off the heatmap feature could hinder Russia’s intelligence gathering.
Other companies have taken similar measures to make it harder to track the activities of Ukrainians. For example, Google and Apple have turned off live traffic information in Ukraine.
Snap also took some additional measures after the Russian attacks. As we mentioned earlier, ads were stopped from showing in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine for the duration of the war.
Snapchat heatmap (or Snap Map) for those who don’t know shows you how many people are posting in a given area. While this publicly available data is often not meaningful, it has the potential to be used by Russia to gather intelligence.
US companies block Russian media
The war between Russia and Ukraine affects the whole world. Most major tech platforms like Meta, Twitter, Google (YouTube), and Microsoft banned Russian state-owned media outlets after the Ukraine invasion. In fact, Meta has announced that it will impose restrictions on Russian media, first regionally and then globally, to curb the flow of misinformation.
Don’t forget to share your views on the Snapchat heatmap shutdown for Ukraine on the SDN Forum or in the comments!
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