Special Edition: On stolen likeness, buried settings, dastardly deepfakes and why creators need a seat at your table
Dear Meta:
Last Tuesday you released a new “Muse Image” AI feature, letting anyone @-mention any public Instagram user, and get an AI generated image based on their face. Even worse, your users would never know, as you automatically opted EVERY SINGLE public user into your AI deepfake generator. And you hid the opt-out inside a byzantine process deep inside the settings menu.
It took a user revolt to force you to walk that dangerous and dumb feature back. Your shocking display of hubris was a broadside to every single one of your creators, no matter how small, as they’ve been struggling to protect their image and likeness from brazen theft. The feature was available for three days, and even though you pulled it back, like Pandora’s box you failed to delete any of the images already created.
What were you thinking? I can only imagine you knew exactly what you were doing and shipped a deep fake NIL rip-off machine on unsuspecting creators, betting they wouldn’t notice until it was too late.
Although you claim to support creators, it’s clear that your actions continue to render those claims worthless. And I suspect that you’ve been through so many layoffs that there’s no one internally with any political juice to stand up for the rights of creators.
That has to change. I’m calling for you to open an internal “Creator Ombudsman” position, one that sits on your leadership team, and who can review and reshape anti-creator features and capabilities. Creators need a powerful voice that you actually listen to at the highest levels of the company.
It’s not like this is a new idea. You need only look a few exits up 101 to YouTube’s San Bruno HQ. Creator Liaison Rene Ritchie admirably performs this role for YouTube. He’s valued and revered by YouTube’s CEO Neal Mohan and his leadership team, and they regularly reach out for his opinion on how creators will react to new products and features. Ritchie also spends lots of time helping creators understand how YouTube works… another area where Meta needs improvement. He’s the creator voice at the table and in the field that Meta so obviously lacks.
No one on your leadership team will ever have the credibility with creators that Mohan does. But with a strong voice for creators on your senior team, at least creators will have a seat in the board room.
It’s time for Meta to stop playing fast and loose with creators. Move fast and break things loses its boyish charm when creators likenesses can be twisted into harmful deepfakes with the press of a button. You are building on the backs of real humans. It’s time to show them some respect. (BBC)
Yours Truly
Jim Louderback, Editor and CEO, Inside the Creator Economy
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