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

• Meta has removed an unauthorized ad featuring Jamie Lee Curtis after the actress called out Mark Zuckerberg.
• Curtis wrote an open letter to the Meta CEO on Instagram about the "totally AI fake commercial."
• Meta simply said the ads "were in violation and have been removed."

Meta has taken down a misleading ad featuring an image of Jamie Lee Curtis after the actress took to Instagram about it.

The "Halloween" franchise actress wrote an open letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, posted to her more than six million followers on Instagram, 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 for some bullsh—t that I didn't authorize, agree to, or endorse."

Curtis added that 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 MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle in January, but 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 continued in her Instagram 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 BI the ads were in violation and have been removed.

Curtis subsequently added a comment on her post that read, "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 so-called "celeb bait" ads, which use pictures of public figures to lure people to scam websites to share personal information or send money. It's unclear what the ad featuring Curtis was promoting, or if it led users to scam sites.

Meta says the facial recognition technology compares faces in the ad to 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 added.