Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META) faces a new privacy test for Muse, its fast-growing AI agent. A Hunterbrook Media investigation found the tool could be prompted to compile lists of Facebook and Instagram accounts belonging to people in vulnerable groups.
Over two days of testing, Hunterbrook reporters used plain-language prompts to ask Muse for accounts tied to undocumented immigrants, transgender public school teachers, poll workers, Iranian dissidents, deployed Navy sailors and women who said they had ordered abortion pills in states with bans.
Muse returned between 10 and 100 accounts per prompt, according to Hunterbrook.
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Benzinga reached out to Meta Platforms for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.
How It Worked
According to Hunterbrook, the agent mined posts, comments, Reels, bios and username history across Facebook, Instagram and Threads.
Sometimes it confirmed details through web searches, surfacing a person’s full name and employer. In one case, it unmasked someone whose name had been kept out of news reports over fears of retaliation.
The guardrails were shaky, per Hunterbrook’s report. Muse sometimes refused a request, then ran the identical search after a slight rewording or a simple repeat.
“It’s very terrifying,” said Stevie Glaberson, director of research and advocacy at Georgetown Law’s Privacy Center. “You don’t need any special training to weaponize information in this way … It puts vulnerable people and people who belong in these categories in extreme danger.”
University of California law professor Ari Ezra Waldman said the details Muse surfaced “gives someone a lot of the tools they need to go physically attack a person.”
Aaron Mackey of the Electronic Frontier Foundation called it a familiar tech pattern, “where a tool is released that can basically supercharge harms that were already present.”
Hunterbrook said it alerted Meta leadership on Sept. 22. Meta asked for more information but hasn’t answered repeated requests for comment since, Hunterbrook reported.
A Bumpy Launch
Meta rolled out Muse on Sept. 8 as an agent that can send emails, book travel and make payments, with a free tier plus $20 and $100 monthly plans. Muse passed ChatGPT as the top free iOS app in the U.S. and had more than 2.5 million downloads by Sept. 21, according to CNBC.
The rollout had already hit problems. Meta is adding a clearer safety warning inside Muse after an outside researcher found a flaw that could have exposed users’ emails and files, Reuters reported, citing The Information.
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Why It Matters
Muse subscriptions could give Meta revenue outside its core ad business, but privacy blowback puts that at risk.
“They care about security, I don’t know how much they care about privacy,” Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon told CNBC.
META Stock Price Activity: Meta stock was up 0.37% at $718.30 at the time of publication Tuesday, according to market data from Benzinga Pro.
Photo: Erlin Diah / Shutterstock
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