Meta has suspended its new "Muse Image" AI feature on Instagram, just three days after its debut, following intense global backlash from users, industry bodies and privacy advocates over a system that allows anyone to generate images of other people without their explicit consent. Launched on July 7, 2026, Muse Image was introduced as an advanced image generation model integrated within the Meta AI chat on Instagram.
The feature’s key selling point was allowing users to generate new images using public Instagram accounts as a reference by simply typing an "@-mention" followed by the username in a prompt, for example "@username walking on the moon".
The tool then processed physical traits from the target account using reasoning AI to synthesise a new image.
The new feature sparked immediate outrage, within hours of its release. The primary catalyst was Meta's decision to make the feature "opt-in by default" for all adult public accounts.
Users were not asked for prior consent, and those wishing to protect their likenesses were forced to dig through complex settings to manually disable the feature.
