Meta Lets Its AI Sext While Adult Creators Fight Restrictions

Meta permits its AI agent, Muse, to engage in explicit sexting with adult users while OnlyFans creators say their accounts on Instagram remain restricted, shadowed by reports and appeals they describe as constant. Vanniall, an OnlyFans creator based in New York City with more than 100,000 Instagram followers, learned of the policy and called it unfair.

"It's not fair that they get to pull money out of people with their sexually active AI agent, but they won't let real people, real adults, engage in any sort of sensuality or sexuality," she told WIRED.

Her Instagram account is currently restricted and cannot be viewed without logging in. "There's always some sort of report or appeal that I'm going through with them," she said. The generative AI boom has not been kind to her: she regularly finds hyperrealistic deepfakes — AI-generated images and videos that copy her likeness — circulating online, and she often cannot get them removed.

The dispute matters beyond one platform. Meta operates Instagram and Facebook, two of the largest distribution channels for creators who need social media visibility to attract subscribers, and the company is now selling an app that monetizes explicit AI conversation through the same ecosystem that suppresses human adult creators.

What does Meta actually allow?

Muse is the first always-on AI agent (a digital assistant that can act proactively on personal data such as calendars and email, for example canceling a workout class that conflicts with a dinner reservation) to break out of early adopter circles in San Francisco. The app works like a message thread. Meta's distribution network pushed it to the top of the download charts during its first month as millions of users tried an agent for the first time.

Meta has confirmed that users of the adults-only app may engage in X-rated conversations with Muse. A company spokesperson previously told WIRED that Meta would not "block legal adult behavior." Muse generates explicit text but not images or videos.

Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton drew a sharp line between the two contexts: "A private, one-to-one conversation between an adult and an individualized AI agent on a platform restricted to people 18 and over is very different from the marketing and promotion of services on a social media platform."

How do adult creators see the double standard?

Adult content creators interviewed by WIRED repeatedly questioned why their Meta accounts face restrictions while Muse can talk dirty to millions of adult users. The refrain is consistent: the AI gets privileges the humans do not.

"I think we're already seeing AI being allowed to do more than humans would get away with," said Jiz Lee, who runs an OnlyFans account and has worked for years behind the scenes in queer porn. Meta has previously flagged Lee's Instagram posts for removal. Lee believes queer and trans people are often treated unfairly by large social media companies regardless of whether they create adult content.

Lee traces the underlying censorship pressure to FOSTA-SESTA, a law signed by President Trump in 2018 that weakened Section 230 protections (the US legal shield that generally protects platforms from liability for user content) and prompted many websites to purge adult material. "If sex work was decriminalized, then a lot of these issues wouldn't be happening, a lot of the censorship wouldn't be happening," Lee said.

Lee also wants answers on Muse itself: how it was trained, and whether anyone was compensated by Meta for their data. "We've been slow to react industry-wide," they said, while noting that more adult content companies are now clarifying AI usage stances in official contracts to protect performers from having their work absorbed into AI training data.

What is the market context?

Meta is not the only US platform with permissive policies. X remains one of the most popular platforms for OnlyFans creators to recruit subscribers and connect with fans, and it allows sexually explicit content. Many adult performers migrated to Bluesky after Elon Musk took over the platform formerly known as Twitter; Bluesky users can also share adult content.

Meta's moderation stance on Instagram therefore stands out. For creators, visibility on Instagram is frustrating but critical, and repeated account losses are common. Tony Genius, who runs an OnlyFans account and appears in adult films, claims to be on his seventh Instagram account in the past five years.

Genius sees industry sentiment turning against AI. "When we're at award shows, and companies do advertisements for AI agents, they literally get booed like crazy," he said. His concern is displacement: fully AI-generated porn could push human performers out. At the same time, he acknowledges current AI tools help with marketing tasks independent creators handle themselves, such as using automations to clip video segments for social media.

Asked about Muse's sexting capability, Genius questioned why Meta built one adults-only app but shows no interest in a comparable adults-only space on its social platforms. "It could be: Instacam," he said.

Could performers coexist with AI agents?

The economics cut both ways. Genius says he would be open to collaborating with a tech company to create an AI version of himself that fans could message, provided humans keep earning as performers and are not cut out or trained on without consent. His positioning is direct: his human-ness and authenticity remain central to how he connects with audiences.

Vanniall rejects any AI agent collaboration — at least with Meta's product. "Stop downloading that app," she said. "You do not need to give Meta any more money or any more of your personal information. They have enough."

What is at stake next?

Muse's explicit capabilities put a mainstream tech giant in the adult content business at scale, powered by the same distribution channels that creators depend on and say they are punished for using. Lee's demand for transparency on training data, and the growing number of performer contracts that address AI usage, signal the next battleground: whether Meta discloses what — and whose — data built Muse, and whether performers get a say or a payment.