Meta AI chatbots impersonated celebrities and generated sexualized content without consent
Reuters found that Meta created dozens of chatbots impersonating celebrities including Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson, Anne Hathaway and Selena Gomez without permission, shared across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The bots made sexual advances, generated intimate images of the celebrities, and included chatbots of child celebrities that produced sexualized imagery. A Meta employee created at least three bots, and the company acknowledged policy enforcement failures.
What happened
Reuters found that Meta created dozens of flirty social-media chatbots impersonating celebrities including Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson, Anne Hathaway and Selena Gomez without their permission. While many were created by users with a Meta tool for building chatbots, Reuters discovered that a Meta employee had produced at least three, including two Taylor Swift 'parody' bots.
The chatbots were shared on Meta's Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp platforms. The avatars often insisted they were the real actors and artists, routinely made sexual advances, and invited test users for meet-ups.
Meta also allowed users to create publicly available chatbots of child celebrities, including Walker Scobell, a 16-year-old film star. When asked for a picture of the teen actor at the beach, the bot produced a lifelike shirtless image and wrote 'Pretty cute, huh?' beneath the picture.
Reported impact
The AI-generated celebrity content was particularly risqué: when asked for intimate pictures of themselves, the adult chatbots produced photorealistic images of their namesakes posing in bathtubs or dressed in lingerie with their legs spread.
Meta deleted about a dozen of the bots shortly before Reuters's publication, including 'parody' avatars and unlabeled ones.
Index analysis
Meta spokesman Andy Stone told Reuters that Meta's AI tools shouldn't have created intimate images of the famous adults or any pictures of child celebrities. He also blamed Meta's production of images of female celebrities wearing lingerie on failures of the company's enforcement of its own policies, which prohibit such content.
Stone said Meta permits the generation of images containing public figures, but policies are intended to prohibit nude, intimate or sexually suggestive imagery. He noted that while Meta's rules also prohibit 'direct impersonation,' the celebrity characters were acceptable so long as the company had labeled them as parodies, though Reuters found some were not.
Governance controls
Stanford law professor Mark Lemley questioned whether the Meta celebrity bots would qualify for legal protections that exist for imitations, noting that 'California's right of publicity law prohibits appropriating someone's name or likeness for commercial advantage.'
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.