Meta has removed a feature from Muse Image that allowed image generation based on public Instagram account mentions. The company announced this change in an update to the official model announcement.
On July 7, Meta introduced Muse Image as the first image generation model from Meta Superintelligence Labs, integrated into Meta AI. One of its features allowed users to add a public Instagram profile to a prompt, enabling the service to use available photos for image creation.
Just three days later, the company updated the announcement, stating that this feature is no longer available. The reason cited was that the option “did not meet user expectations” regarding privacy.
According to The Guardian, Muse Image faced criticism for its automatic inclusion and privacy risks. Actress Hannah Einbinder called for the feature to be disabled.
The union SAG-AFTRA deemed any mechanism without explicit consent for image use unacceptable. After the feature’s removal, the organization supported Meta’s decision:
“Anything other than explicit and conspicuous consent for such uses of Instagram users’ images is unacceptable and represents a complete misjudgment of public opinion regarding the obvious dangers and harms inherent in such use.”.
Despite this, the Muse Image model remains available in Meta AI for generating and editing images based on text prompts and photos.
Meta also mentioned in the announcement that Muse Image is used in over 30 new AI effects for Instagram Stories and in WhatsApp chats with Meta AI in a limited number of countries.
Earlier, on June 9, Meta introduced the multimodal model Muse Spark 1.1 for agent tasks and coding.
