Meta to label AI-generated images on Facebook, Instagram and Threads

Meta is working with industry partners on common technical standards for identifying AI content, including video and audio. In the coming months, the tech giant will label images that users post to Facebook, Instagram and Threads when it can detect industry standard indicators that they are AI-generated.

In a blog on Meta, its President, Global Affairs, Nick Clegg, wrote that he company has labeled photorealistic images created using Meta AI since it launched so that people know they are “Imagined with AI”.

“People are often coming across AI-generated content for the first time and our users have told us they appreciate transparency around this new technology. So, it’s important that we help people know when photorealistic content they’re seeing has been created using AI,” Clegg wrote.

When photorealistic images are created using the Meta AI feature, the company does several things to make sure people know AI is involved, including putting visible markers that users can see on the images, and both invisible watermarks and metadata embedded within image files. Using both invisible watermarking and metadata in this way improves both the robustness of these invisible markers and helps other platforms identify them. “This is an important part of the responsible approach we’re taking to building generative AI features,” Clegg added. 

He further wrote, “We’re building industry-leading tools that can identify invisible markers at scale – specifically, the “AI generated” information in the C2PA and IPTC technical standards – so we can label images from Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, Adobe, Midjourney, and Shutterstock as they implement their plans for adding metadata to images created by their tools.” 

In the coming months, Meta will start applying labels in all languages supported by each app. It is taking this approach through the next year, during which a number of important elections are taking place around the world.