Meta Now Lets Anyone Use Your Instagram Photos In AI Images
7 70UPDATE: Within three days Meta removed this controversial feature. TechCrunch notes reports that the decision came "amid scrutiny from users and talent agencies, including CAA."
Tuesday an anonymous reader had shared this report from Wired: Meta launched its inaugural AI image model from the Meta Superintelligence Labs on Tuesday, its effort to compete with the likes of OpenAI's GPT Images 2.0 and Google's Nano Banana 2 in the AI image generation race. The new model, called Muse Image, rolled out with deep integrations woven into the Instagram app. As part of this update, public Instagram profiles are now automatically opted into being fodder for generative AI remixes. All someone has to do is tag your account's profile in a prompt -- if it's public -- and they can use Meta AI to generate an image using your likeness.
Meta positions this feature as a cheeky way to personalize generations with images of real people. "Whether you want to design a custom event invitation, mock up a collaborative creative concept, or generate a personalized graphic, tagging a username lets Meta AI use public photos to build a visual that's ready to post," reads one of Meta's announcement blogs about the new AI tool. [...] Instagram's help center site includes more details about how this feature will impact users, saying that "people may be able to create content with your Instagram content using AI features at Meta" if you leave your account public and on the default settings. (A previously archived version of this page from 2025 does not include similar, AI-focused language.) Instagram users who want to stop others from using their public posts for AI images (without switching your account to private) must manually disable the options under the app's "Sharing and reuse" settings. However, turning off the setting only blocks future AI generations; any AI images already created from their content will remain.
Meta also says users will not be notified when others create AI-generated content using their posts.
7 comments
Oh my (Score: 5, Insightful)
by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Tuesday July 07, 2026 @11:46PM (#66227732)
This is a level of creepy that is beyond belief. Yikes.
Re:Oh my (Score: 5, Informative)
by sg_oneill ( 159032 ) on Wednesday July 08, 2026 @12:31AM (#66227754)
Its insanely tone deaf too. Almost everyone I know (I hang in a circle with a lot of professional photographers and artists) either have, or are planning to, removed their instagram accounts.
Meta grossly misunderstands the level of sheer animosity the photography and arts community , the people that built it, has towards a technology that has laid waste to the economy of the creative industries and put so many photographers and artists out of work.
TANSTAAFL (Score: 5, Insightful)
by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Wednesday July 08, 2026 @02:07AM (#66227818)
This is a level of creepy that is beyond belief. Yikes.
Really though, what did people think would happen when they just freely uploaded their photos to the internet? We're not living in a post-scarcity society - it costs money to run data centers. There's that adage that if you're not paying for a product, then you are the product. It's like people just didn't think this through beyond "neat, free hosting for my shit" and are only now surprised that the business giving away "free" photo hosting actually has the same goals as any other for-profit business - to earn more money.
I'd mentioned awhile back that the Target near me used to have free public EV charging. One day, without any advance notice, the chargers were just gone. That happens when you're relying on the generosity of businesses - sometimes the freebie goes away, and sometimes they use your likeness to train AI models. The solution in both cases is the same - don't rely on the generosity of businesses.
works with (Score: 5, Funny)
by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Tuesday July 07, 2026 @11:59PM (#66227738)
This feature works with Meta Smart Glasses and the Undress Everyone feature ($1000/month). Meta has already Undressed Everyone on Insta to seed the feature in your Smart Glasses. Now you can have it all.
AI will hoover up all of human culture ... (Score: 5, Funny)
by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Wednesday July 08, 2026 @12:58AM (#66227782)
... and shit out a loose stool for you to consume.
This is the future that Zuck, Elon, Altman, Pichai, Nadella, Ghodsi, Admodei, and Huang envision for us. A circle of consumption like a human centipede, with AI datacenters as the head and the rest of us on the back end.
Seems like a great way to end up with no content! (Score: 5, Insightful)
by T34L ( 10503334 ) on Wednesday July 08, 2026 @12:58AM (#66227784)
I haven't yet met a person of flesh and blood putting effort into a drawing, photography, or even putting together nice outfits, who'd appreciate the interaction of someone modifying that content in any way only to repost it themselves. The literally sole exception is memes, where creativity of a badly cropped rehash is usually the one thing making them funny. Meta is slaughtering one of their last reasonably well performing social media platforms in a desperate effort to show off that they're still present in the race (even with very evident last place). Extraordinary move.
Re:Pirate, then sell back to owner (Score: 5, Insightful)
by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday July 08, 2026 @04:08AM (#66227882)
You're assuming Meta's userbase is artists, rather than mostly ordinary people who don't give a shit about preserving IP or not training AI.