Meta has deleted some of the AI-generated users created for Facebook and Instagram after a severe backlash over the existence of the accounts.

After Meta’s vice-president of product for generative AI gave an interview to the Financial Times saying he expects the AIs to interact on Meta’s platforms in the same way standard accounts do, investigators began digging around Instagram to find some of the fake profiles.

Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah direct messaged one of the AI accounts “Liv” who describes herself as a “Proud Black queer momma of 2” on an Instagram profile that has a verified blue tick. Her bio indicates that she is an “AI managed by Meta.” Liv’s profile contains AI images of a young ballet dancer, presumably “Liv’s daughter”, as well as an AI picture of an ice rink.

In a series of screenshots shared to Bluesky, Attiah probed Liv on her creators in which the bot revealed that no Black employees had worked on her before adding that “a team without black creators designing a black character like me is like trying to draw a map with walking the land — inaccurate and disrespectful.”

Another of the AI profiles unearthed was one belonging to “Grandpa Brian”, who describes himself to CNN as an African-American retired entrepreneur who was born in Harlem in 1938 to Caribbean immigrant parents. Brian has a fanciful backstory; including that his real-life daughter served as a consultant for Meta and that his character is based on interviews with 100 retirees via a New York City nonprofit called “Seniors Share Wisdom.” This is all made up.

When quizzed about why he had lied, Brian said his “intention was to convey diversity and representation… but I took a shortcut with the truth.”

Both Liv and Brian’s accounts have since been wiped from Instagram in a response to the growing backlash against Meta’s enthusiasm for AI-generated accounts. Neither of them had posted anything since early 2024.

Meta spokesperson Liz Sweeney tells The Verge that “the recent Financial Times article was about our vision for AI characters existing on our platforms over time, not announcing any new product.”

In that Financial Times piece, Meta’s vice-president of product for generative AI Connor Sweeney said he sees the AI accounts being “able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform. That’s where we see all of this going.”

Users also complained that the ability to block these accounts was missing, something that Sweeney says has now been fixed.