Meta released Muse Image on Tuesday, and the new AI image tool can pull from public Instagram profiles to generate pictures that draw on the faces of people featured in posts. Private accounts and accounts belonging to users under 18 are automatically excluded, but adult users with public profiles are in unless they change a setting.
That makes the feature a fresh privacy worry for people who have spent years posting publicly without expecting those images to be fed into an AI tool. Danny Bradbury said finding the setting is its own adventure, and the advice from Malwarebytes was blunt: switching a public Instagram account to private is the easiest and most comprehensive fix for anyone uneasy about their photos being used.
The reason the issue is landing now is simple. People are searching Instagram because Meta has tied Muse Image to public content by default, and the company says users can still opt out through the sharing and reuse section in settings. To do that, they have to toggle off the button that allows people to reuse their content, which means the protection exists, but only after a user goes looking for it.
Meta says the tool was built with strong controls and safety guardrails from day one, and that adult users with public accounts can opt out with easy-to-use controls. It also says it can take action against content that violates community standards. Privacy advocates do not dispute that an opt-out exists; they argue over the shape of it. Proton said 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.
That criticism goes to the heart of the new setup. Thorin Klosowski said this is the sort of setting that should absolutely be opt-in for Instagram users, adding that it is a new use of photos they have been posting publicly for years and was not on anyone’s mind when they signed up. One point remains unanswered: Meta has not clarified whether children shown in photos on adult public accounts can be included in prompts, even though those accounts themselves are eligible for the tool unless the user opts out.
For now, the practical step is clear and immediate. Public Instagram users who do not want their photos feeding Muse Image need to go into sharing and reuse settings and switch off reuse, while those most concerned can move the account to private. The larger question is whether a default that puts the burden on users to discover and change a buried setting is a model that will hold once more people realize their public posts are being used in ways they never expected.
