Last week, Meta introduced its first image generation model called Muse Image, which uses advanced reasoning to understand prompts and lets users turn their ideas into high-quality visuals that can be shared directly to their chat, feed or story.
This model was made available in the Meta AI app and on meta.ai, in Instagram Stories in the US, and WhatsApp in limited countries.
After the launch of this model, Meta started facing criticism and backlash on social media platforms. This is because, while launching the feature, the company announced that users can @-mention public Instagram accounts in the Meta AI app to bring specific Instagram profiles right into their images.
What raised concerns is that neither the tagger nor Muse Image will have to ask for that public account user’s permission for the image creation, as the feature was turned on by default for all public Instagram accounts and users were required to disable this feature manually in order to opt out and save their images.
Many creators started warning other users to turn off this feature, while users also criticised Meta for this opt-out policy, as this feature could allow scammers to use the public account images for nefarious activities.
After receiving the backlash, Meta has discontinued this feature on Instagram and reportedly said in a statement, “Our intent was to provide a useful creative tool and to give people control over 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.”
