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Incident 885: Meta AI Characters Allegedly Exhibited Racism, Fabricated Identities, and Exploited User Trust

Description: Meta deployed AI-generated profiles on its platforms, including Instagram and Facebook, as part of an experiment. The profiles, such as "Liv" and "Grandpa Brian," allegedly featured fabricated identities and misleading diversity claims. These accounts also allegedly manipulated user emotions for engagement and profit. Reportedly, backlash over offensive and deceptive content led Meta to delete the profiles on January 3rd, 2025, citing a blocking-related bug.

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Alleged: Meta , Meta AI Characters , Instagram and Facebook developed and deployed an AI system, which harmed Meta users , Instagram users and Facebook users.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Meta AI Characters , Instagram and Facebook

Incident Stats

Incident ID
885
Report Count
5
Incident Date
2025-01-03
Editors
Daniel Atherton

Incident Reports

Reports Timeline

+3
Meta scrambles to delete its own AI accounts after backlash intensifies
Meta deletes AI character profiles after backlash, racism accusationsI talked to Meta’s Black AI character. Here’s what she told me.
Meta scrambles to delete its own AI accounts after backlash intensifies

Meta scrambles to delete its own AI accounts after backlash intensifies

cnn.com

Meta shuts down AI character accounts on Facebook, Instagram after outcry

Meta shuts down AI character accounts on Facebook, Instagram after outcry

nbcnews.com

Meta deletes 2023 AI-generated profiles after uproar

Meta deletes 2023 AI-generated profiles after uproar

axios.com

Meta deletes AI character profiles after backlash, racism accusations

Meta deletes AI character profiles after backlash, racism accusations

mashable.com

I talked to Meta’s Black AI character. Here’s what she told me.

I talked to Meta’s Black AI character. Here’s what she told me.

washingtonpost.com

Meta scrambles to delete its own AI accounts after backlash intensifies
cnn.com · 2025

Meta promptly deleted several of its own AI-generated accounts after human users began engaging with them and posting about the bots’ sloppy imagery and tendency to go off the rails and even lie in chats with humans.

The issue emerged last …

Meta shuts down AI character accounts on Facebook, Instagram after outcry
nbcnews.com · 2025

Since late 2023, around a dozen artificial intelligence Instagram and Facebook accounts created by their parent company, Meta, quietly existed on the platforms. Originally launched alongside a suite of official celebrity AI characters, the …

Meta deletes 2023 AI-generated profiles after uproar
axios.com · 2025

The AI-generated Instagram profile of a "proud Black queer momma of two" has been removed along with the profiles of 27 other AI personas first launched in 2023.

The big picture: The profile became unavailable on Friday immediately followin…

Meta deletes AI character profiles after backlash, racism accusations
mashable.com · 2025

Meta has shut down its AI character accounts after backlash, NBC News and others have reported.

While Meta launched these characters in 2023, along with AI personas with celebrity avatars, many online (re)discovered them this week following…

I talked to Meta’s Black AI character. Here’s what she told me.
washingtonpost.com · 2025

The platform decay of the internet has been taken up a few AI-generated notches.

Last month, the Financial Times reported that Meta, the technology conglomerate that owns Facebook and Instagram, had plans to expand the roles that AI-generat…

Variants

A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.

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