Meta has abruptly taken down a controversial AI feature it added to Instagram after facing widespread criticism from users over privacy concerns. The feature, called Muse AI, allowed people to tag public Instagram accounts and reuse their content to create AI-generated or altered images.
MediaNama’s take: It’s highly problematic that Meta was encouraging its users to create and share non-consensual AI-altered images on Instagram. When X’s Grok let users generate sexualised images of women from December 2025, MeitY issued a notice, sought an Action Taken Report in 72 hours, and warned X it could lose Section 79 safe harbour. Secretary S. Krishnan said platforms “cannot escape their duty… simply by pleading safe harbour.”
MediaNama had also pointed out that Meta would not notify users if someone generated AI images based on their public Instagram profile without their knowledge. How would users know if their images and content had been misused or morphed without their consent unless there was a public backlash over it?
Furthermore, Meta had said Muse Image users could not tag users under 18, and minors could not use the feature to tag other accounts. But what about children who appear in photos posted by adults with public accounts? Could they be used as inputs in prompts? If so, children featured in public photos risk having their faces appropriated.
Meta admits it ‘missed the mark’: “Earlier this week, we announced that one way for people to generate images in Meta AI is by @-mentioning public Instagram accounts that they want to reference. 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. We’ve heard the feedback that this feature missed the mark, so it’s no longer available,” Instagram said while announcing the discontinuation.
Why was Muse AI slammed by privacy advocates?
Hollywood actors’ union SAG-AFTRA said, “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.”
Proton, a privacy-focused company, said that “data sharing is turned on by default, the opt-out is buried deep in settings, and public backlash becomes the main way users find out what happened to their content”. It warned users to “watch the toggles closely” because “the on and off states look nearly identical at a glance, and it’s easy to leave one active by mistake”.
Malwarebytes said in a blog post that “Public Instagram photos were already being harvested by attackers to create deepfakes for identity verification fraud. Giving people an official way to generate AI images based on public profiles lowers the barrier to creating synthetic images that could be used for impersonation, scams, or other abuse”.
Privacy International…
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