GoKawiilInstagram’s visible AI labels are supposed to help people quickly spot synthetically generated content at a glance. Over the last few weeks, however, users have been reporting that the system has gone haywire. They say Meta has been automatically applying an “AI Content” label to images that they didn’t create or edit using generative AI tools. Meanwhile, actual AI imagery is slipping through the cracks, leaving the impression that nothing can be trusted on Instagram at all.
The precise causes of this tagging seem to vary. Many people said the label appeared on images that were edited using tools like Canva’s Background Remover or with negligible use of blemish-fixing tools. One user on Threads said Instagram was applying the label “every time there is bg remover involved,” and another user said it appeared after they used Canva to remove “a speckle” from their photo, resulting in the entire image being flagged on Instagram as AI. In other cases, the causes are even less clear.
If this labeling mishap sounds familiar then you may recall that a similar issue blighted photography on Instagram with a “Made by AI” label in 2024, a few months after the feature was released. That February, Meta announced it would scan images for IPTC and C2PA metadata, which can prove with reasonable certainty whether generative AI was used to create or manipulate them. But it’s always been vague about its methods. In 2024, the detection system reportedly swept up pictures whose Adobe metadata indicated they had been retouched with generative AI tools, even if the changes were extremely minor and substantively resulted in the same photograph. Meta then promised to tweak its labeling approach to better reflect “the amount of AI used in an image.” It also said it uses “industry standard indicators that other companies include in content from their tools,” but there isn’t any recent information available about what they are, or how and when it scans for them. Meta didn’t respond to a request for clarification.
This is the message that pops up when you inspect the AI Content tags that Instagram is automatically applying. Image: Meta
The recently reported erroneous labels don’t have a clear link to generative AI usage. While features like background removal do often use machine learning, it’s the same assistive AI variety that apps like Photoshop have used in object selection and removal tools for over a decade — not the generative text-to-picture tools typically associated with deceptive AI imagery.
At least some of Instagram’s recent AI labeling mishaps appear to be Canva’s fault. After flagging the Background Remover tagging concerns, content strategist Jess Bruno reports that Canva came back to her with an explanation: Some of the design platform’s assistive AI tools “were being tagged as generative.” The design platform told Bruno that its tools are now tagging correctly. A message on Canva’s background removal help page also says that using the tool “doesn’t add Canva’s AI-generated content metadata to your design,” though it’s unclear if that note is new, and Canva didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Yet some Threads users are reporting that using Canva’s Background Remover still results in their images getting tagged, despite Canva claiming to have resolved the issue on its end. Other Threads users also report that none of the images they edited using the tool prior to it being fixed got tagged by Instagram, nor did the tool apply C2PA metadata that Meta supposedly uses to detect AI-generated content.
Out of all the tests I ran to see what would make the label appear on Instagram, it was only applied on images I edited or fully generated using the Meta AI app.
These are just some of the images I posted to Instagram to test its AI detection, but only the two on the top right (created in Meta AI) were tagged. Image: Jess Weatherbed / The Verge
There are also reported cases of AI tagging where Canva’s Background Remover was reportedly never used at all. One user found that Meta applied the tag on an image that had been poisoned — or subtly tweaked by a system that’s designed to make images useless for AI training and/or degrade the AI models they’re fed to — and didn’t tag an unpoisoned version of the same content.
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