How to opt out of Meta’s Muse Image: protect your Instagram photos from AI misuse

Meta launched an AI image generation model called Muse Image earlier this week, and it integrates directly with public Instagram accounts — meaning anyone can now generate an AI image of another person simply by typing that person’s Instagram handle into a prompt, without the account owner being notified.

Instagram users who want to limit this can opt out, though the setting takes a few steps to find. On the app, go to Profile, then Menu, then Sharing and reuse. Under ‘Allow people to reuse your content on Instagram and with AI features at Meta,’ turning off the Posts and Reels toggles stops the account from being used in future Muse Image prompts. Wording may vary by app version, and the feature is still rolling out, starting in the US, so the option may not be visible to everyone yet.

Opting out only affects future use — it does not remove AI images that may have already been generated using an account’s likeness before the setting was switched off, and those remain in circulation. Switching an account to private is currently the only way to prevent the feature from being used on a profile at all.

Cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes has warned that the tool could be used for impersonation, scams or other abuse, pointing out that public Instagram photos were already being harvested to create deepfakes used in identity verification fraud before Muse Image existed.

Security researchers also recommend enabling multi-factor authentication on Meta accounts. Earlier this year, a ‘confused deputy’ flaw in Meta’s AI support chatbot let it make account changes, including changing email addresses and resetting passwords, without adequately verifying the user’s identity — a risk that multi-factor authentication appeared to mitigate.

Meta says Muse Image is meant to make AI image generation more personal by letting people reference public Instagram accounts in their prompts, but for users who prefer not to be included, checking the Sharing and reuse settings — or making an account private — remains the main available safeguard.