Meta has ignited considerable controversy among privacy advocates by enabling its newly launched Muse Image AI tool to generate photorealistic depictions of users with public Instagram profiles by default, without obtaining their explicit consent. This feature, introduced on Tuesday, permits users to tag public profiles and produce images that extract facial data from the individuals featured in those social media posts. Crucially, Instagram users receive no notification when their uploaded content is appropriatedappropriated/əˈproʊpriˌeɪtɪd/L3（未经许可）擅自使用、挪用，尤指将他人的内容或形象用于自己的目的taken or used for one's own purposes, often without permission or legal right into what Meta touts as its “most advanced image generation model yet”. The simplest comprehensive remedy for those concerned about their likenesses being absorbed into this system is to convert public accounts to private. Malwarebytes, a cybersecurity firm, noted in a 9 July blogpost that this constitutes “a blunt solution, but it prevents strangers from using your public profile as source material”. Notwithstanding, a more nuanced approach exists for those who wish to retain a public presence.
A Meta spokesperson asserted in a statement to the Guardian that Muse Image was constructed “with strong controls and safety guardrails from day one”, adding that private accounts and those belonging to users under 18 are automatically excluded from the training data. Adult users with public accounts, the company claimed, can opt out using “easy-to-use controls”, specifically by navigating to the “sharing and reuse” section of settings and toggling a button that permits others to reuse their content. Privacy advocates, however, contend that expecting users to proactively disable this feature is fundamentally inequitableinequitable/ɪnˈɛkwɪtəbəl/L3不公平的、不公正的，尤指在权利或负担分配上缺乏平衡unfair or unjust, especially in the distribution of rights or burdens, with Malwarebytes writer Danny Bradbury describing the process of locating the setting as “its own adventure”. Proton, a privacy-focused company, argued in a blogpost that “data sharing is turned on by default, the opt-out is buried deep in settings, and public backlash becomes the main way users find out what happened to their content”. They urged users to “watch the toggles closely” because the on and off states appear nearly identical at a glance, making inadvertentinadvertent/ˌɪnədˈvɜːrtənt/L3不经意的、无意的，由于疏忽而非故意造成的done without intention or awareness, resulting from carelessness or oversight activation a distinct possibility.
Although Meta stipulates that Muse Image cannot tag accounts belonging to minors and that teenagers cannot use the feature to reference other accounts, the company has yet to clarify whether children depicted in photographs from adults’ public profiles could be integrated into AI prompts. Proton warned that children in such public photos risk having their faces appropriated without recourse. Thorin Klosowski, a senior security and privacy activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, argued unequivocallyunequivocally/ˌʌnɪˈkwɪvəkəli/L3毫不含糊地、明确地，表达观点或立场时没有任何模棱两可in a way that is clear and unambiguous, leaving no doubt that “this is the sort of setting that should absolutely be opt-in for Instagram users”, noting that it represents “a new use of the photos they’ve been posting publicly for years, and certainly wasn’t on anyone’s mind when they signed up for Instagram years ago”. Meta’s press release for Muse Image depicted ostensiblyostensibly/ɒˈstɛnsəbli/L3表面上看来，看似（但可能并非真正如此）apparently or seemingly, but possibly not in reality innocuous applications—from researching “the hottest women’s summer 2026 looks” to clearing a foggy landscape—yet also showcased the tool’s more complex capabilities: combining multiple images, including a specific person, a particular bicycle model, and a desired aesthetic, into a single prompt. Privacy advocates counter that these ostensibly playful features possess a darker dimension, as Malwarebytes observed: “That may sound fun when you’re creating images of yourself. It’s less appealing when anyone else can do the same with your account.”
