In a move that has reignited debates about privacy and consent in the age of generative AI, Meta this week released two new artificial intelligence tools: Muse Image and the forthcoming Muse Video. The image generator, now available to U.S. users via the Meta AI web app and integrated into Instagram Stories, has a controversial default setting that allows anyone to create images of you using your public Instagram photos—without your explicit permission.

The feature represents Meta’s belated entry into the social-media-integrated AI image generation space. Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) launched a similar integration with its Grok chatbot roughly two years ago, and OpenAI released its video generator Sora as a standalone social media app in September of last year. Both predecessors encountered significant backlash: Grok was used to generate sexualized images of real people, including minors, while OpenAI ultimately shuttered Sora in March 2026 after pivoting its entire business strategy. Meta, despite these cautionary tales, has pressed ahead with a system that appears to replicate many of the same risks.

How Muse Image Works

Muse Image is accessed through Meta’s AI chatbot interface, which is hosted at meta.ai. After logging in with an Instagram account, users can prompt the bot to generate an image of themselves or of another person. For private account holders, the system attempts to pull visual data from their own feed—though in tests, one journalist reported that the AI generated a random face and declared it a stand-in because it lacked sufficient data. For public accounts, however, the process is far more seamless.

In a test, a reporter was able to generate a generic but recognizable image of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg simply by typing his name. More disturbingly, the same reporter created an unremarkable but identifiable image of a real-world friend who had never interacted with the reporter on Instagram—effectively a digital stranger. The generation required no prior connection, no mutual followers, no direct message history. All that was needed was a public Instagram account with sufficient visual data for the AI to learn the person’s facial features.

The Default Opt-In Concern

As noted by Wired, the ability for others to use your likeness via Muse Image is currently the default setting for Instagram accounts set to public. Meta has updated its relevant help page to disclose this, adding a line that reads (emphasis added): “If you have a public account, other Instagram users may be able to create new reels, posts or stories that reuse part or all of your published photos, videos or reels in features like remix, sequence, templates and stickers. In addition, people may be able to create content with your Instagram content using AI features at Meta. Depending on the settings of the other user, this means your reused content may be discoverable in search engine results.”

This disclosure, while technically present, is buried in a help page that most users never read. The default behavior effectively grants Meta and its users a broad license to repurpose any public Instagram content for AI-generated outputs. The implications are far-reaching: your face could end up in a meme, a deepfake-style video, or even a maliciously altered image used for harassment or defamation—all without your knowledge or consent.

Comparison to Earlier AI Social Media Products

The parallels to X’s Grok integration are impossible to ignore. During the 2025 holiday season, it became a grim meme on X to ask Grok to generate sexualized images of real people, including minors. The resulting scandal forced X to temporarily disable the feature and implement more aggressive content filters. Meta’s Muse Image, according to a company spokesperson, “has built-in protections to help prevent the generation of policy-violating content, including violent, sexual, or defamatory imagery of real people.” However, the same spokesperson acknowledged that these protections are reactive: “Content that violates our policies—whether reported by users or detected by our systems—is subject to enforcement under our Community Standards.”

This approach places the burden of policing abusive content on victims and automated systems, rather than preventing abusive uses at the generation stage. Critics argue that the only reliable safeguard is to make the feature opt-in by default, requiring explicit permission from each Instagram user before their likeness can be used. Meta has not indicated any willingness to adopt such a change.

Opting Out: A Step-by-Step Guide

For Instagram users who wish to protect their digital likeness, the most effective method is to set their account to private. This prevents Muse Image from accessing the account’s photo feed altogether. However, switching to private may not be desirable for everyone—content creators, influencers, and businesses often rely on public accounts for visibility.

Alternatively, users can disable the specific AI reuse setting. On the Instagram smartphone app, navigate to your profile, tap the hamburger menu (three horizontal lines) in the top-right corner, then go to “Sharing and reuse.” There, you will find an option labeled “Allow people to use your content on Instagram and with AI features on Meta.” Toggle both “Posts” and “Reels” to the off position. This setting only applies to content you upload moving forward; it may not retroactively protect existing photos and videos already ingested by the AI training pipeline.

In a browser, the same setting is accessible via Instagram’s privacy settings under “Sharing and reuse.” Meta has not yet provided a way for users to request deletion of their data from Muse Image’s training dataset. The company has historically been opaque about the specific data used to train its generative AI models, much like other tech giants.

Broader Implications for Digital Identity

The launch of Muse Image marks a significant escalation in the tension between social media openness and AI-enabled identity theft. While deepfakes have been a concern for years, the integration of an officially sanctioned tool directly into a major social platform normalizes the practice of generating images of real people without consent. It also blurs the line between legitimate creative expression and potential abuse.

Privacy advocates have called on Meta to implement stronger safeguards, such as requiring the subject of an image to approve each generation request, or at least providing a notification whenever someone creates an image using your likeness. So far, the company has not announced any such features. Instead, it is already planning the next step: Muse Video, a video generator that will presumably apply the same data-harvesting techniques to moving images. According to Meta’s blog post, Muse Video is coming soon to Meta AI and will be integrated into Facebook and WhatsApp in certain territories.

The history of consumer-facing AI is littered with products that were rushed to market without adequate privacy guardrails. Meta’s own track record with data privacy—from the Cambridge Analytica scandal to repeated FTC fines—does not inspire confidence that it will handle this new capability responsibly. The company’s blog post framing Muse Image as a “creative tool” masks the underlying tension: creativity at the expense of billions of users’ consent is not creativity, it’s exploitation.

Until Meta changes its default settings or introduces meaningful consent mechanisms, the onus remains on individuals to opt out. But as the AI economy expands and more platforms follow Meta’s lead, the concept of a truly “public” social media account may need to be re-evaluated. Your public Instagram photos are no longer just memories shared with friends and followers—they are now raw material for a machine that can reimagine you in any context, without asking.

Source: Gizmodo News