Adam Mosseri details trends shaping Instagram and says it'll be more practical to authenticate real media than label AI, as AI gets better at imitating reality
Adam Mosseri says creators should prioritize “unflattering” images to prove they are real. — It's no secret that AI-generated …
Engadget Karissa Bell
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- Looking forward to 2026, one significant interesting is that authenticity is becoming infinitely reproducible. @mosseri · Adam Mosseri
- This whole post feels like I'm at a funeral where the killer is giving the eulogy. @bryngreenwood · Bryn Greenwood
- Insane to get a post from the head of Instagram basically saying that AI is ruining our trust in social media, after you spent the entire last year forcing AI shit into every single crevasse of our bodies @nateinthewild · Nate Luebbe
- All I'm saying is that Instagram launched as an app to share phone photos edited with Hipstamatic filters. From the start, photographers were quick to call IGers out for dramatizing their pictures with vintage overlays. It was never entirely authentic; the tool is a means to storytell content around your life. … @bobbyhundreds · Bobby Hundreds
- He's correct about authenticity being the highest value currency for creators moving forward, but it also sounds like someone who wants to have his AI cake and eat it too. It's mostly a reminder that meta has no (stated) intention to take their foot off the genAI gas pedal in 2026. @brooksrocco · Brooks Rocco
- Meta: “We're going to shove our AI models into everything we make so you use them as much as possible” Meta: “AI is making it hard to tell what's real. This is going to be a challenge for us and for you! Be careful and vigilant and try not to die” @davidimel · David Imel
- Seems to me like he's stating the obvious . Same principal applies to the best movies and music , and in general people who I want to be around. Lean into flaws , the stuff that you've always been self conscious about, they are your undeniable edge. … @everchanginghorizon · Quin
- I found @mosseri 's post below interesting. Something I'm increasingly uncomfortable with in the creator economy is how creators are selling part of themselves, not just their content. For instance, Patreons with access to them, interactions with emotional labor, tidbits about their private life. This, in some ways, is the authenticity that AI can't replicate. But it also feels like the deepest, most invasive part of capitalism where you're selling not just your body (labor) but your personhood. @die_workwear · Derek Guy
- Authenticity can't really become infinitely reproducible though. Yes, technology can make it easier to share content as a creator, but scaling content to be as mass produced as possible will always take us back to the same place with the same problems. @matthewfacciani · Matthew Facciani
- Not entirely sure who needs to hear this but “infinitely reproducible authenticity” is - by definition - absolutely fucking inauthentic: @bigbendavis · Benjamin Byron Davis
- Have you talked to the people at your company? Much of this is good. And at odds with the business decisions many of us have fallen victim to. When Instagram sides refuses to remove deepfakes because they profit from them, that's not betting on authenticity. That's choosing profits over people. … @baratunde · Baratunde Thurston
- People's photographs. That's what I miss. Their own, individual, idiosyncratic, snapshots. It felt like we were all sharing art and inspiring each other. No pressure to create reels. Talk to camera. Sell someone a functional mushroom gummy. @ianconningham · Ian Conningham
- I don't even know why you posted this. Meta doesn't reward authenticity. I don't necessarily mean with money either. I mean with views and engagement. You prioritize controversial or artificial content and I don't think you realize how fatigued people on either side of the political spectrum are with it. You're doing it on Instagram, FB and here, yet you continue to wonder why fewer people are interacting. Answers easy, you just don't listen. @mambo_fredericka · Fredericka Turner
- You don't even force AI labels on content that's clearly made with it today. There's just a silly toggle that no one bothers to use. Why should anyone trust Instagram to get better at any of this or actually be thoughtful about it? @chriswelch · Chris Welch
- Wrote up some thoughts on @mosseri's note on the state of Instagram which imo is quite telling! Besides labeling, he says the feed of pretty square photos is “dead” and photographers and camera companies should stop chasing polished photos that look good and shift to more “unflattering” and “raw” pics to prove their authenticity … @karissabe · Karissa
- “The bar is going to shift from “can you create?” to “can you make something that only you could create? ” That's the new gate.” — RE: https://www.threads.com/... @alexheath · Alex Heath
- You Can't Trust Your Eyes To Tell You What's Real Anymore, Says Instagram Head Slashdot · Msmash
Discussion
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@milkkarten
Rachel Karten
on x
very reassuring note from the head of instagram! [image]
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@thatoldbear
@thatoldbear
on bluesky
as a guy at the pinnacle of the shitmaking machines, this has to be the weakest most pitiful “oops you poors will have to keep eating the peanuts outta our shit” squeal [embedded post]
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@ykomska
Yuliya Komska
on bluesky
The age of medial autocannibalism [embedded post]
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@mattschrader
Matt Schrader
on bluesky
People who think some kind of real id or watermarking process is going to solve the bullshitification of everything on the Internet really need to take a harder look at how it has solved exactly zero percent of those problems in China [embedded post]
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@joeuchill
Joe Uchill
on bluesky
Ubiquity doesn't matter. It's an automated process. [embedded post]
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@karissabe
Karissa Bell
on bluesky
Instagram's top exec Adam Mosseri just published a little manifesto on the state of Instagram and AI going into 2026 and .. it's quite telling! He basically says Meta should give up trying to proactively label AI content and that camera companies should be in charge of verifying…
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@iansociologo
Ian Carrillo
on bluesky
These guys know that when a product is labelled “AI-generated” people's negative perception of it increases. [embedded post]
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@brocktoon
Ian
on bluesky
Ah, so we're full circle back to NFTs [embedded post]
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@blackamazon
@blackamazon
on bluesky
And whole get affirmed .. but again let's just pretend it's new . Let's pretend it won't be racialized who gets “verified” — And everyone act like this is inevitable and “candid” [embedded post]
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@bwjones
@bwjones
on bluesky
Leica was the first camera company to ship content authentication via the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) and the C2PA standard as part of their camera's standard function. — Authenticity is important. Especially given all these companies like Meta who are spending billi…
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@benmffowler
Three Wise Ben
on bluesky
Okay here me out, give original media some sort of checkmark so people know it's legit. I'm sure that won't backfire spectacularly. [embedded post]
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@sarkastiklover
@sarkastiklover
on bluesky
“We have no idea how to moderate this” — *spends another billion on LLMs* [embedded post]
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@chronotope.aramzs.xyz
Aram Zucker-Scharff
on bluesky
This is 100% preparing to push Content Provenance tooling on to average users in order to extract even more data so that your photos don't get labeled as AI. He talks about cryptographic signing, but Insta will be requiring the keys, I'm sure. [embedded post]
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@mathewolson.com
@mathewolson.com
on bluesky
imagine this guy comes up to you on the street dressed exactly like this and tells you to turn over your wallet, keys, and birth certificate because it's easier than the alternative (to what? he doesn't say). imagine not looking for the nearest toilet to give him a swirly in [e…
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@danhon.com
Dan Hon
on bluesky
“No Way To Prevent This,” Says Company Spending Billions Of Dollars To Encourage This [embedded post]
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@voidfemme
Mr. Gandalf B. Naturals
on bluesky
Well that banished any lingering doubts I had about deleting insta. But I have friends that can't because they need it to promo like indie authors and other artists and there isn't *really* an equivalent for visual media [embedded post]
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@highway62
@highway62
on bluesky
“We've tried nothing and it didn't seem to work!” — I wish these platforms got treated like publishers, because that's what they do. [embedded post]
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@violetsalazar
Violeta
on bluesky
They just want fake content to have fake users for fake ads watching for real money also probably fake data selling [embedded post]
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@thetrudz.photo
Tru
on bluesky
He's a terrible person that has had beef with photographers for like a decade. — However, the thing some ppl won't address for some reason is how 1) there is still no equivalent in footprint (key word, equivalent) to IG yet + 2) a lot of ppl are actively hostile to photography/…
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@hypervisible.blacksky.app
@hypervisible.blacksky.app
on bluesky
The Slopocalypse
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@jrosenbaum.com.au
Dr J. Rosenbaum
on bluesky
I've been saying for a while that platforms want AI content labeled so they can filter it out in training data, so this still tracks with that. I do think that there is something interesting in the idea of making something deliberately imperfect as a human signature. [embedded …