Snapchat offers Ghost Mode, a privacy feature that allows users to hide their location from others. Snap Maps launched in 2017 as a way to share Snaps globally through our Stories. This add-on allows users to share their location with friends in real time while using the app. Their Bitmoji appear on the map, allowing others to see their Snaps, Stories, friends, and locations — whatever is available at a given time.
While Snap Maps offers innovative ways for friends to connect and communicate, location sharing can be risky if users don’t know their privacy settings. For example, if a user sets their settings to share with everyone, their location will be marked on the Snap map for anyone who comes across their name, Bitmoji, Story, etc. your friend, your friend or a complete stranger. Fortunately, Snapchat has been aware of this potential threat from the start and offers users as many privacy options as possible to keep their location as private as possible, which is elusive. especially Ghost Mode.
Snapchat users may not feel comfortable thinking about their exact location being shared globally and available to everyone at this time. But there’s a quick and easy way to set up a ghost for those who value privacy (or at least control). Ghost mode is a completely private mode that makes only you present on the Snap map. No one else can see your location, not even your Snapchat friends.
To enable the feature, tap Bitmoji in the upper-left corner of the camera screen, then scroll down to Snap Map. Next, tap the gear icon in the upper right corner to open Settings. Finally, turn on ghost mode. When you choose to enable Ghost Mode, you’ll see a pop-up with various timer options, including three hours, 24 hours, or “until closed. The timer allows you to choose how long you want the network to be off, whether it’s a few hours coming to an end or disappearing in the near future.
There are also looser privacy settings in Ghost Mode in the Snap Map settings window. Users can choose to share with all their Snapchat friends — this includes any other friends added in the future, but excludes people who added you as a friend but you haven’t added them back yet . Another option available is sharing with friends, but there are exceptions. In this mode, you can select specific Snapchat friends to see your location. The last option is to choose specific friends. In this mode, only friends you explicitly select can see your location. So there are plenty of ways to make sure Snapchat only shows you what you’re willing to share.
Ghost Mode vs Ghost Trails: What’s the difference?
Snapchat has another feature called Ghost Trails which is different from Ghost Mode. Unlike Ghost Mode, Ghost Trail is only available to Snapchat+ subscribers. This feature lets you see where your friends have been in the last 24 hours, as long as they’ve shared their location with you and live in a country where they have Snapchat+ access. To see a friend’s spooky tracks, open Snap Maps and tap a friend’s Bitmoji to see a “trace” of their most recent location on the map.
Snapchat+ users who want to restrict Ghost Trail sharing have two options. To remove your own Ghost Trail on the Snap map, toggle Ghost Mode on and off. You can also choose to temporarily share your real-time location with friends, which will remove your Ghost Trail from the Snap map. While Ghost Trails can be a concern for privacy-conscious Snapchat users, the good news is that, like Ghost Mode, there is a way to turn the feature off.
Source: Snapchat