Instagram cracks down on AI accounts pretending to be human

10 hours ago

Thomas Ricker

is a deputy editor and Verge co-founder with a passion for human-centric cities, e-bikes, and life as a digital nomad. He’s been a tech journalist for 20 years.

Instagram is finally taking steps to address the rise of fake AI-influencer accounts that have gotten harder to spot. It’s also renaming the “AI creator” label to “AI-generated profile” to make it clear when a profile features an AI-generated person that’s not a real human being.

“We’ve heard that people don’t like seeing a profile that seems human, only to find out later that the person featured is AI-generated,” said Instagram in a blog post. “They want to know when a profile features an AI-generated person.”

To that end, Instagram will be hunting down accounts that don’t self-label their AI-generated profiles, and penalize them by limiting reach. That means their posts won’t be recommended to non-followers in Reels and Explore. Profile owners can appeal the decision if wrongly flagged.

Instagram says that people using AI tools to generate content do not need to add the label. So, today’s action won’t let you filter out AI slop on the platform, but it’s good to see Instagram boss Adam Mosseri find the courage to take the first step.

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