evidence: Meta, the Mark Zuckerberg-owned tech giant behind Instagram, surprised many of the app’s estimated 1.2 billion global users with a shock revelation last month. Images, including original artwork and other creative assets uploaded to the company’s platforms, are now being used to train the company’s AI image generator. That admission, initially made public by Meta executive Chris Cox during an interview with Bloomberg last month, has elicited a fierce backlash from some creators. As of writing, more than 130,000 Instagram users have reshared a message on Instagram telling the company they do not consent to it using their data to train Meta AI. Those pleas, however, are founded on a fundamental misunderstanding of creators’ relationship with extractive social media platforms. These creators already gave away their work, whether they realize it or not. [...] "I own the copyright to all images and posts submitted to my Instagram profile and therefore do not consent to Meta or other companies using them to train generative AI platforms. This includes all future AND past posts @Instagram get rid of the Ai program." [...] Creators on Meta platforms aren’t happy about the company’s seemingly newfound interest in using their accounts as AI fodder. In addition to the posts above, some users’ creators have even gone a step further and threatened to leave the platform entirely if the company continues on its current path. And while users can’t really revoke the consent they gave Meta when signing up for the platform, some users nonetheless defended the creator backlash as a way of collectively voicing frustrations.