Strava has even a toggle "Include my anonymized public activity data in Strava Metro and the Heatmaps" for controlling does location data from sport activities end up into heatmaps or not.
Interesting, that in media this "news" has been mostly about Strava doing something it openly says it does. There hasn't been much critique about military not educating their personnel not to publish the exact locations of military bases in Internet's sport services. If that is even a problem in their perspective.
It is not seen as a problem by the regular military. Kinda hard to hide tanks and artillery pieces and soldiers with iPads and C-130s flying into airfields from locals in countries where having a car is a luxury. Locals can get better information about the bases from people working on the bases, or from just watching them. There is basically nothing you can get from this heatmap that you couldn't get from really any local living near the place. It's the other non-military facilities that would care about this.
You're way off. The reason this "news" is news is not because Strava has done anything naughty, it's because people that are tasked with the national security (and often some secrets) of their respective nations have committed such an easily avoidable op-sec failure.
That was mostly what I was replying to, but yes I didn't really read it. I originally read the paragraph as meaning some of the media coverage you had seen/read tried to somehow find fault with Strava. I re-read it, and I see what you meant now. I read a bit too much into the quotes.
Interesting, that in media this "news" has been mostly about Strava doing something it openly says it does. There hasn't been much critique about military not educating their personnel not to publish the exact locations of military bases in Internet's sport services. If that is even a problem in their perspective.