Meta discontinues its Muse Image AI feature for Instagram after facing widespread criticism over privacy and consent. The tool, launched on Tuesday, lets people generate AI images by tagging or referencing public Instagram accounts and using the tagged profile’s content as input. Critics said users were automatically opted in by default when their accounts were public and that Meta did not clearly notify people when their posts were used in others’ AI-generated images. Privacy advocates and industry groups raised concerns that the approach enabled third parties to create images using users’ likenesses without explicit permission.

Meta said it intended to provide a creative tool while giving people control over whether their public content could be referenced, but acknowledged that the feature “missed the mark” based on user feedback. Multiple outlets report that Meta removes the feature after the backlash, with critics including prominent individuals and the SAG-AFTRA actors’ union calling for users to opt out. While some guidance existed on how to disable relevant settings, sources indicate that turning off controls did not necessarily prevent AI images already generated from the content. Meta’s discontinuation follows growing scrutiny of how AI systems use publicly available social media material.