Meta pulled a 'totally AI fake' ad of Jamie Lee Curtis after the actor wrote an open letter about it to Mark Zuckerberg

• Meta has removed an unauthorized ad featuring Jamie Lee Curtis after she called out Mark Zuckerberg.
• She wrote an open letter to the Meta CEO on Instagram, calling the ad a "totally AI fake commercial."
• Meta simply said the ads were a violation and had been removed.

Meta has taken down a misleading ad featuring an image of Jamie Lee Curtis after the actor flagged it on Instagram.

The "Halloween" franchise actor wrote an open letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, posted in front of her more than 6 million Instagram followers, imploring his company to remove an unauthorized post using her likeness.

"It's come to this @zuck," Curtis wrote in an Instagram post on Monday, tagging Zuckerberg. "Hi. We have never met. My name is Jamie Lee Curtis and I have gone through every proper channel to ask you and your team to take down this totally AI fake commercial." She added that it was nonsense that she "didn't authorize, agree to, or endorse."

Curtis said she'd tried to DM Zuckerberg but wasn't able to do so since he didn't follow her, so her last resort was to "take to the public instaverse" to reach him.

Her post also showed the ad in question. It features a real photo of Curtis, taken from an interview she did with the MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle in January, but is overlaid with a fake caption implying Curtis said, "I'd want everyone suffering from."

"If I have a brand, besides being an actor and author and advocate, it is that I am known for telling the truth and saying it like it is and for having integrity," Curtis said in her post. "This (MIS)use of my images (taken from an interview I did with @stephruhle during the fires) with new, fake words put in my mouth, diminishes my opportunities to actually speak my truth."

A Meta spokesperson told Business Insider the ads were a violation and had been removed.

Curtis subsequently added a comment on her post that said: "IT WORKED! YAY INTERNET! SHAME HAS IT'S VALUE!
THANKS ALL WHO CHIMED IN AND HELPED RECTIFY!"

Meta announced last year that it had begun testing the use of facial recognition technology to detect these "celeb bait" ads, which use pictures of public figures to lure people to scam websites that prompt them to share personal information or send money. It's unclear what the ad featuring Curtis was promoting or whether it led users to a scam site.

Meta says the facial recognition technology compares faces in the ad with the celebrity's profile pictures on Facebook and Instagram, and if it's a match and the ad is found to be a scam, it'll be blocked. Facial data generated for the comparison is immediately deleted, whether it yielded a match or not, the company adds.