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Meta turns off the Instagram feature that let users make AI deepfakes of public accounts

The feature, announced on Tuesday, received significant backlash.

The feature, announced on Tuesday, received significant backlash.

by Jay PetersJul 10, 2026, 11:49 PM UTC

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***Jay Peters is a senior reporter covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme.Following significant backlash, Meta is turning off the feature it announced this week that let users generate AI images based on content from public Instagram accounts just by tagging them. The feature, as originally set up, meant that content from any public Instagram account could be used in AI creations without the account owner’s permission.

“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 says in an update to a blog post about its new Muse Image AI model. “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.”

Meta did let you opt out by digging through settings before turning off the feature entirely, but the feature still drew major criticism.

“Not only does this obviously erode our rights to our own likeness… but it is an obvious tool for #sextortion and other scammers!” Haley McNamara, executive director and chief strategy officer of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, said earlier on Friday. “Pursuing high-risk design & then putting the onus on individuals to jump through hoops to opt out is unacceptable.”

The Screen Actors Guild recommended that its members opt out of the feature and spelled out instructions on how to do so.

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