Meta Removes Instagram AI Image Feature After Privacy Backlash: Why ‘Muse Image’ Was Pulled
Meta pulled Muse Image, its new AI image generation feature for Instagram, just days after launching it, following a wave of criticism over privacy and consent.
The company said Friday (July 10) it had discontinued the feature after backlash over how public Instagram content was being used to generate AI images.
Meta admits the feature “missed the mark”
Meta said the tool was meant to be a creative feature that also gave people control over whether their public content could be referenced. “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,” the company said, adding that it had listened to feedback and removed the feature. “We’ve heard the feedback that this feature missed the mark, so it’s no longer available.”
Why was it removed?
Muse Image came out of Meta Superintelligence Labs and launched earlier this week, built into the Meta AI chatbot. It let users generate and edit AI images using their existing Instagram photos.
The problem was that public Instagram accounts were automatically opted in. That meant publicly shared images could be used to train or support the AI model without users ever explicitly agreeing to it. Once people noticed, the criticism came fast, from users, privacy advocates and entertainment industry groups alike.
Celebrities and SAG-AFTRA pushed back
Hannah Einbinder, who won an Emmy for Hacks, told her Instagram followers to manually turn the feature off once she realized it had been switched on by default for everyone.
Then on Thursday (July 9), SAG-AFTRA weighed in with a pointed statement urging its members and other Instagram users to opt out. The union’s position was simple: using someone’s images for AI purposes needs clear, explicit permission. “Anything other than a clear and conspicuous opt-in for these types of uses of Instagram users’ images is unacceptable, and an utter miscalculation of public sentiment regarding the obvious dangers and harms inherent in such use,” the union said.
Meta pulling the feature is the latest flashpoint in an argument that’s been building for a while now: what tech companies are allowed to do with content people never explicitly agreed to hand over.