Meta pulls Muse Image days after launch following privacy backlash over Instagram AI

MUMBAI: It was designed to paint a creative future. Instead, it drew a line that users refused to cross.

Just days after launching Muse Image, its new AI image-generation model, Meta Platforms has withdrawn one of the tool’s headline features following a wave of criticism over privacy, consent and the potential for creating non-consensual deepfakes.

The company admitted the feature had “missed the mark” and disabled it entirely after users, creators and privacy advocates objected to how it handled public content.

At the heart of the controversy was a feature integrated into the Meta AI chatbot that allowed users to tag any public Instagram account in a prompt. The AI would then use publicly available images from that account as visual references to generate new AI-created or digitally altered images.

Meta positioned the capability as a creative way for users to personalise AI-generated artwork. Critics, however, saw something very different.

The strongest criticism centred on consent.

Rather than asking users for permission, Meta automatically enrolled all public Instagram accounts belonging to adults into the feature. Anyone who wanted to prevent their photos from being referenced had to manually opt out through their account settings.

The platform also confirmed it would not notify users if someone used their public profile to generate AI images, raising concerns about identity misuse, impersonation, stalking and online harassment.

Privacy campaigners described the feature as making it significantly easier to create non-consensual manipulated images, drawing comparisons with other recent AI controversies surrounding synthetic media and deepfakes.

The backlash soon spread beyond the technology industry.

Creative Artists Agency, one of Hollywood’s largest talent agencies representing stars including Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep and Zendaya, publicly criticised the rollout.

The agency argued that no individual’s name, likeness, voice or creative work should be used by AI systems without explicit, documented consent and urged Meta to adopt an opt-in model rather than requiring creators to opt out.

Faced with mounting criticism, Meta reversed course.

“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. “We’ve heard the feedback that this feature missed the mark, so it’s no longer available.”

The removal extends beyond disabling image generation.

Users can no longer tag public Instagram profiles to generate AI images, while Meta has also removed the settings toggle that previously allowed people to manage whether their public content could be reused through the feature.

The broader Muse Image model, however, remains available. Users can continue creating images through standard text prompts, but without referencing public Instagram profiles.

The episode marks one of the fastest product reversals in Meta’s AI strategy and underscores the growing pressure facing technology companies as they race to integrate generative AI into consumer platforms.

For Meta, the message from users was unmistakable. Creative tools may be welcome, but when personal identity becomes the raw material, consent is no longer an optional feature.