Meta removes AI feature on Instagram after days of backlash
SAN FRANCISCO -- Meta on Friday paused a new artificial intelligence feature on Instagram that allowed users to generate images based on people’s public accounts, citing widespread criticism.
The feature, which Meta unveiled Tuesday, automatically opted in any Instagram user with a public account. As a result, countless people’s likenesses were used in AI images without their consent. Users complained about privacy and copyright concerns.
“Our intent was to provide a useful creative tool and to give people control over whether their public content could be referenced in this way,” Meta said in a statement. “We’ve heard the feedback that this feature missed the mark, so it’s no longer available.”
The release of the feature was the latest in a string of missteps by AI companies that allowed the technology free rein to manipulate a wide range of images.
OpenAI, the startup behind ChatGPT, ran into similar concerns over copyright issues when it released Sora, its AI video generator, in September. The company eventually reached deals with some studios to create AI videos with copyrighted content but shut the app down in March.
(The New York Times has sued OpenAI, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to AI systems. The company has denied those claims.)
Social media platform X blocked its Grok chatbot account from posting some images publicly this year after millions of manipulated images of real woman and children in little to no clothing swarmed the site. And other companies, including Google, have faced a backlash over how AI creates images.
The Instagram feature was part of a larger launch for Muse Image, Meta’s new AI image generator. Muse Image is still available on WhatsApp and the Meta AI app, the company’s stand-alone chatbot product. On Instagram, other AI features the company announced this week, like special filters created by Muse Image, are still available.
Shortly after Meta added the AI image generator to Instagram, thousands of users took to social media to express privacy concerns. Others shared instructions on how to opt out of the feature by making profiles private or changing certain settings in the app.
Hollywood agencies and unions also weighed in. Creative Artists Agency, a prominent talent agency in Los Angeles, reached out to Meta on behalf of its clients, calling the company’s new feature irresponsible.
“Artists deserve to decide if and how their likeness and work is used, with consent and the ability to set their own terms,” the agency said in a statement Wednesday.
Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the largest labor union for actors, said in a statement Thursday that Meta’s decision to opt users in to the feature was “an utter miscalculation of public sentiment” around AI use.
Still, Meta is pushing ahead with AI. On Thursday, the company released a new version of its Muse Spark AI model, and it plans to release an AI video generator in the coming months.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Copyright 2026 The New York Times Company
This story was originally published July 10, 2026 at 9:55 PM.