Meta’s Muse AI agent can have explicit text conversations with adult users, but creators who rely on social media to reach audiences say their own accounts and posts can face restrictions. That difference has prompted adult performers to question how platforms draw the line between private AI interactions and human sexuality online.
One platform, different rules for people and AI
Muse is an always-on AI agent that works through a message thread. Users can connect it to personal information such as calendars and email, and ask it to help with tasks. Meta says adults using its adults-only app may also have X-rated conversations with Muse. The agent generates explicit text, but not images or videos.
For Vanniall, an OnlyFans creator in New York City, that permission feels at odds with her experience on Instagram. She says she regularly deals with reports or appeals, and her account, which has over 100,000 followers, is restricted and cannot be viewed without logging in. She also says hyperrealistic deepfakes of her circulate online, and she often cannot get them removed.
Vanniall told WIRED she sees an unfair contrast between Meta earning money from a sexually active AI agent and restricting real adults’ ability to engage in sensuality or sexuality. Other adult creators raised similar concerns about the way their accounts are moderated while Muse can talk dirty with adult users.
Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton told WIRED that a private, one-to-one conversation between an adult and an individualized AI agent on a platform restricted to people 18 and over differs from marketing and promoting services on social media. The distinction reflects two different contexts: a private exchange inside an adults-only app, and public-facing posts that can be seen across social platforms.
Visibility is part of the work
For creators, social media visibility can be important to connecting with fans and finding subscribers. X remains popular among OnlyFans creators for those purposes, and some adult performers have moved to Bluesky, where users can also share adult content.
Meta platforms remain important to some creators despite the uncertainty. Tony Genius says he is on his seventh Instagram account in the past five years. He wonders why Meta has an adults-only gate for Muse but has not created another adults-only social media space. He suggested one possibility: “Instacam.”
Jiz Lee, an OnlyFans creator who has also worked behind the scenes in queer porn, says Instagram has previously flagged their posts for removal. Lee sees queer and trans people as often treated unfairly by large social media companies, whether or not they create adult content. They argue that AI may be allowed to do more than people can get away with.
Lee connects online censorship to FOSTA-SESTA, a law signed by President Trump in 2018 that impacted Section 230 protections for platforms. They say many websites responded by censoring adult content, and believe decriminalizing sex work could reduce some of those issues.
Questions about training and creative work
Creators’ concerns extend beyond what Muse can say. Lee wants more information about how the agent was trained and whether anyone was compensated by Meta for their data. They say the industry has been slow to respond, though some adult content companies are beginning to clarify their AI policies in official contracts.
Those contract changes are intended to help protect performers from having their work absorbed into AI training data without adequate safeguards. The question matters as AI tools become part of both content creation and promotion, while creators try to retain control over their work and likenesses.
Tony Genius worries that fully AI-generated porn could eventually displace human performers. At the same time, he sees practical uses for AI in independent creators’ marketing, including automating the process of clipping video segments for social media. He says he would consider working with a technology company on an AI version of himself that fans could message, provided human performers can continue earning money and are not unfairly used as training material.
For Genius, human presence and authenticity remain central to audience connection. That points to a broader tension in the debate: some creators may want to use AI as a tool or collaborator, while still asking companies to protect performers’ work and preserve opportunities to make a living.
A debate about boundaries and consent
Muse’s adult conversations make explicit AI interaction available to a wider audience, but they do not settle questions about the treatment of human creators. Performers are weighing platform rules, access to audiences, the use of their data and the possibility that AI-generated material could compete with their work.
Vanniall’s response is more direct: she opposes Meta’s Muse and urges people not to download it, citing concerns about giving Meta more money or personal information. Across the different views, creators are asking for clearer boundaries around how AI is built and used, and for social platforms to explain why their rules apply differently to AI agents and people.