‘Missed the mark’: Meta pulls new Instagram AI tool after backlash
Social media giant Meta has pulled a new AI feature on Instagram after backlash.
Muse Image, which was launched this week, was met with criticism due to privacy concerns.
AI-GENERATED IMAGE: Muse Image was also available on WhatsApp in some countries. Meta/AI-GENERATED
It allowed users to generate images with photos from public Instagram accounts and was gradually being rolled out.
But users were being told how to turn it off by critics to avoid their images being used.
The tech giant has now said in a statement today it has halted the feature.
“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,” Meta said.
“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.”
The tool was available on the Meta AI app and website, as well as Instagram Stories in the US and WhatsApp in some countries.
Meta stressed this week users could control how their content could be used for AI creation and turn it off at any time.
Sydney Independent MP Allegra Spender had said she was “really worried” about the setting.
“I just heard about Meta’s new AI image generation tool, and I’m really worried about it,” she said in a video posted on social media on Thursday night.
“This means that Meta automatically opts in for your public Instagram photos to be used for AI generation by anyone.
“The first thing I did was opt out.”
Tech justice non-profit Foxglove’s advocacy director Donald Campbell told the BBC it was “an obvious recipe for disaster”.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Nic Coury
“We’ve already seen a catalogue of harms from non-consensual AI-altered images on social platforms just in the past year,” he said.
“It is hard to see why Mark Zuckerberg thinks facilitating yet more of this creepy image manipulation is a good idea.”
Meta previously said users can’t mention accounts belonging to under-18s, nor can they use the tool to reference other accounts.
“We built Muse Image with strong controls and safety guardrails from day one,” a spokesperson said.
“Private accounts and those belonging to users under 18 are automatically excluded and adult users with public accounts can opt out with just a couple clicks.
“We will take action against any content that violates our Community Standards.”
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