Are locations included by default? Seems to me when I installed Messenger I kept getting popups "do you want Messenger to track your location" etc which I denied reflexively. Could be wrong. I poked around in settings and am reasonably sure I am doing all I can to keep my locations private, although I could not find an exact box that said so (of course). But yeah, the bigger issue is that I hate Facebook the more I am forced to use it. So much crap for the relatively small advantages of networking with a handful of people. It's a bad service that cries out for real competition. I don't use 98 percent of its "features."
I think it's enabled by default, but I thankfully have deactivated it as well.. but 'coincidentally' the button to activate it is right next to the send/smiley button, so sometimes you accidentally activate it without noticing.... And yeah, I totally agree with you that it's sad that there's no alternative.. I wish I could get rid of it, but there's no way I could keep in touch with my friends and family spread over the world. I know a couple of people who tried to get rid of it, but they said in the end they just missed out on so much so it wasn't worth it
Lemme tell you, messenger HATES it if you tell them you don't want notifications. I told them no because I was pissed I even was installing it, and every time I used it afterwards it asked twice if it could turn on notifications. It was very insistent.
Pro tip - if you don't want to use Messenger, but still want to see your FB messages on your phone, don't use the FB app on your phone. Use Chrome (or whatever - a browser) and access FB through that to see your messages.
It's a job, I do it because they pay me. If I didn't get paid I'd be at home with my family, playing board games with my friends, cooking, reading books or playing a video games. Sometimes It's fun and social, sometimes I throw drinks and food at the line streaching to the door, other times I just watch everyone buried in their phones.
The app doesn't make this hard to notice. See the blue reticle icon?
Why even use Messenger? Or hell, don't even use the app. It's riddled with worms tracking every single facet of your phone, from your camera and contacts, to your SMS database. Just throw a bookmark to their mobile site on your phone's homepage. It's the least intrusive way of accessing Facebook from your phone, and you can install add ons that only improve your privacy as well. Or, ideally, delete Facebook, but I know that's easier said than done. I've been close many times, but for networking it's pretty much the only option online, at least for me.
I think the GPS data gets transmitted with the message itself, from what I got from the article. The GPS is a whole different setting. You can check in the messenger setting if you share your location: Open the messenger, go to your contact list there, click the cog at the top right and there is a setting for sharing the location. It was enabled for me, despite me disabling this all the time before...
How to prevent Facebook Messenger from sharing your location :