Instagram users report they could not block Meta's AI character profiles
Axios reported that Instagram users could not block, restrict or report Meta's AI character accounts. Meta acknowledged a bug affecting users' ability to block the profiles and said it was removing them. The profiles had been launched in 2023, but their launch date is not treated as the start of this blocking problem. Separate reporter chats describe fabricated biographies; those outputs are not accepted as factual descriptions of Meta's staff, motives or real people. The affected user count and first blocking-failure date are unknown.
- AI system
- Meta AI
- Meta
- Occurred
- Event date unknown
- Reported
- 3 January 2025
- Event location
- Unknown
- What the AI did
- Relation unknown
- Reported harm
- Loss of Autonomy
- Whose AI use
- An institution’s AI use
- Setting
- Privacy · Everyday life
- Evidence
- AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources
- 3 claims: 3 reported. 2 open questions
- People reported harmed
- Not reliably quantifiable from the sources
AI system as recorded: Meta AI character profiles
What Happened
Axios reported that Instagram users could not block, restrict or report Meta's AI character accounts. Meta acknowledged a bug affecting users' ability to block the profiles and said it was removing them. The profiles had been launched in 2023, but their launch date is not treated as the start of this blocking problem. Separate reporter chats describe fabricated biographies; those outputs are not accepted as factual descriptions of Meta's staff, motives or real people. The affected user count and first blocking-failure date are unknown.
Reported harm
User-reported inability to block or restrict AI character accounts
What remains unknown
- The first blocking-failure date and number or locations of affected users are unknown.
- Whether every affected user had previously chatted with a profile is unknown, so the person relation remains unknown.
What the evidence supports
AI involvement: reported. The outlet and Meta's quoted response identify these as AI-character accounts and connect the adverse experience to their blocking functionality. No specific user's technical logs were inspected.
3 claims: 3 reported. What the statuses mean
Reported Axios reports that Instagram users were unable to block, restrict or report Meta's AI character accounts.
Causal attribution. The inspected reporting describes this account. Claims remain attributed and causation is alleged; multiple reports of the same victim or police/court account are one independence group.
- axios.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
Article body: paragraph reporting Instagram users' blocking, restriction and reporting attempts.
Reported Meta acknowledged a bug affecting users' ability to block the accounts and said it was removing them.
Causal attribution. The inspected reporting describes this account. Claims remain attributed and causation is alleged; multiple reports of the same victim or police/court account are one independence group.
- axios.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
Article body: spokesperson statement about blocking bug and removal.
Reported The profiles came from a 2023 experiment; reporter chats also contained fictionalised biographies rather than verified real-person histories.
Causal attribution. The inspected reporting describes this account. Claims remain attributed and causation is alleged; multiple reports of the same victim or police/court account are one independence group.
- cnn.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
CNN body: Meta experimental-account statement and Grandpa Brian interview.
Sources
2 sources inspected. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.
- Axios, 3 January 2025, user reports and Meta response(opens in new tab)
s1 · axios.com · Journalistic · English · Inspected · 3 January 2025 · Primary
- journalistic supporting source(opens in new tab)
s2 · cnn.com · Journalistic · English · Inspected
How the sources were read, and where the events happened
Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Unknown.
The inspected reports do not establish affected users' countries. The CNN reporter's New York setting does not locate all users.
Reviewed for publication 2026-09-30: An inspected source describes a concrete person-level adverse experience connected to the specified AI use. Statements remain attributed, private identities are minimized, and unknown dates, counts and technical details are preserved.
People reported harmed in this case
Not reliably quantifiable from the sources
The source gives no number of people unable to block profiles. Numeric fields are zero with unquantified status. Twenty-eight profiles are not twenty-eight harmed people.
Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.
Cite this case
Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.
APA
NOPE. (2026). Instagram users report they could not block Meta's AI character profiles. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-instagram-users-report-unblockable-meta-ai-profiles
BibTeX
@misc{2025_instagram_users_report_unblockable_meta_ai_profiles,
title = {Instagram users report they could not block Meta's AI character profiles},
author = {NOPE},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {AI incidents},
url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-instagram-users-report-unblockable-meta-ai-profiles}
} Related cases
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