Coming up today on Mini Tech Scroll, Meta introduces and
backtracks on a new AI feature. How mainstream social media
platforms are promoting nudify tools and character AI's foray
into micro dramas. Hey everyone, and welcome to
Mini Scroll, the daily Internet culture podcast bringing you the
biggest stories from social media, the creator economy and
the digital space every Monday through Thursday and sometimes
Fridays. My name is Annabelle and I'm
your Wednesday Mini Tech Scroll host and also the deputy editor
of Australian in youth digital media brand Centennial World.
Welcome back to Maytag Scroll for another Wednesday.
I don't really think I have too many updates at the top of this
week's episode, apart from the fact that probably the biggest
story in tech this week was actually covered by Lauren on
Monday. If you want to hear everything
that has been going on with Thea, which is the platform that
Phoebe Gates Co founded and how they are currently in the midst
of a scandal and possible fraud, definitely check that episode
out. We thought it would be better to
cover it there since it was like super timely, but yes, other
than that, Please remember to rate review and subscribe.
OK, let's get into the content for this week.
So we first really need to talk about everything that went on
with Instagram and muse image last week.
This story really hit the headlines on Thursday last week,
and I was actually so annoyed that I didn't get a chance to
cover it on mini tech. But there have also been some
updates since then. So I am actually glad that I
didn't cover it last week. So in case you have haven't
heard anything about this, about a week ago Meta announced Muse
Image, which is the first media generation model developed by
Meta Superintelligence Labs, which is the AI division of
Meta. So Muse Image, according to a
blog post was described as quote our most advanced image
generation model yet. But one of the capabilities that
had been announced alongside Muse Image soon became the
centre of controversy and it was absolutely everywhere.
Basically, this feature allowed Meta users to create AI
generated pictures of public profiles from Instagram and they
could do this by simply tagging them in a Meta AI prompt.
I should know that private accounts and accounts belonging
to mine is what automatically excluded from the feature, but
the rest of us had to opt out. They tried to sell this feature
to users in the blog post by saying that Muse image was
rooted in your own world and honestly, that positioning
didn't really work. As the blog post reads quote,
you can at mention Instagram accounts in the Meta AI app to
bring specific Instagram profiles right into your images.
Whether you want to design a custom event invitation, mock up
a collaborative creative concept, or generate A
personalized graphic tagging a username, let's Meta AI use
public photos to build a visual that's ready to post.
You have control over how your content can be tagged for AI
creation with an easy setting to turn off this feature at any
time. While there is an option to turn
off the feature, as they noted in the blog post, there are so
many issues with a feature like this.
First and foremost is the fact that it is opt out as opposed to
opt in. Considering there would be a
minimal control over how your likeness could be used.
It really feels like users should have to actively agree to
this, and the fact that Meta did opt out kind of suggests to me
that they were trying to force people to engage with this
feature in one way or another. Another issue of course is that
Instagram users could not give their consent to the AI
generated content of them that would be using their likeness.
Users who hadn't heard about this update would firstly have
no idea that it exists and even still have their content used by
AI, and they also wouldn't have been notified when someone
reused it. This is obviously a major
privacy threat and it really opens the door to potential
harassment and impersonation for any public account.
And it also just kind of feels like quite a jump.
Like just because someone posts their pictures publicly, it
doesn't mean that they should have their content used like
that. Like obviously in this day and
everyone is aware that that is a possibility, but a platform
making it that accessible is another level.
When I first started hearing about all this it definitely
reminded me of Soras cameo feature from Open AI, but
somehow this was even worse. If you guys don't remember, the
cameo feature basically allowed users to quote UN quote drop
themselves into any Sora generated scene, but users also
were in control of their likeness to some degree as it
was written in the Open AI blog post at the time.
Quote with cameos you are in control of your likeness end to
end with Sora. Really.
You decide who can use your Cameo, and you can revoke access
or remove any video that includes it at any time.
Videos containing cameos of you, including drafts created by
other people, are viewable by you at any time.
Even though there seemed to be more tools in place when it came
to Cameo, people were obviously still very stressed about this
feature before Sora shut down. Obviously in saying that, there
seemed to be even less oversight with the Muse image feature.
Quickly, publications, creators and even parliamentarians here
in Australia started posting information about this new
feature and how to opt out of it if you are a public account.
SAG AFTRA was one pretty vocal critic.
The union issued a statement recommending that their members
turn off this feature, but also questioning the opt out element
as their statement read quote. Anything other than a clear and
conspicuous opt in for these types of uses of Instagram users
accounts is unacceptable and an utter miscalculation of public
sentiment regarding the obvious dangers and harms inherent in
such use. After days of this mounting
backlash, Meta has since pulled the feature.
They issued an edit to the blog post announcing news image,
including an update on July 10. This is what I read quote.
Earlier this week, we announced that one way for people to
generate images in Meta AI is by at mentioning public Instagram
accounts that they want to reference.
Our intent was to provide a useful creative tool and to give
people control over whether their public content could be
referenced in this way. We've had the feedback that this
feature missed the mark, so it's no longer available.
I mean, I don't really know if AI at a base level is equal to a
quote UN quote useful creative tool.
And I also don't think it's a valid reason for putting out a
feature like this. It really just goes to show how
out of touch these tech companies are as the sag after a
statement commented on because I feel like they're all suffering
from groupthink at this point. Assuming that everyone wants AI
everything, which couldn't be further from the truth.
You can still upload images of someone and ask Meta AI to
generate an image of them, which is obviously similar to other AI
chat bots. But this is also something that
Meta told me in a chat when I was trying to test this out
while I was researching for this story.
As the chat log read quote, you can just upload any photo you
have and say use this person slash make this person do X and
I'll generate from that. So while you can't tag them, I
guess you still can be making unconsensual AI generated images
of someone. Nevertheless, some social media
users are touting Meta's decision to pull the feature as
a win, as at Kate McGill vocals said on threads quote.
It proves fighting back actually works and I definitely think
there is some truth to that. But we can't be too naive
because at the same time, we can't forget that this comes
only like 2 weeks after the launch of Meta glasses, which is
another tech product that completely undermines our
ability to control how our likeness is used and is honestly
just another Ave. for harassment, especially for
women. I spoke about that in mini tech,
I think from 2 weeks ago. So while Meta admitted that they
quote UN quote missed the mark, it doesn't seem like this is
something that they genuinely believe or care about.
Considering they continue to promote products like Meta
Glasses, it's clear where their priority lies, and it's not
always with user safety. OK, let's get into the next
story. In more grim news, a new report
reveals that mainstream social media platforms are leading
users to tools that generate non consensual intimate images, or
in other words, nudify apps. We have had many conversations
around platforms and features that generate not safer work or
explicit content of social media users without their consent, and
this did really pick up at the beginning of this year with X's
whole undressing scandal. I did cover this whole thing in
multiple episodes of Mini Tech Scroll, but as a quick
refresher, similar to Muse AI, X rolled out a feature that
allowed users to edit a photo, any photo, without permission
from its owner or say a person in the photo.
Unfortunately, this feature was quickly used for nefarious and
disgusting reasons. Users started asking Grok to
remove clothing from people featured in various images, and
this was absolutely anyone ranging from women to minors.
Now X kind of operates in this weird space in the online world,
I would say these days. It obviously is increasingly
right wing, but you do have niches like Stan Twitter that
are still alive and well. In that sense, it is definitely
a more mainstream platform. We're allowing its associated AI
tool to do something like this is worrying because it's
obviously not some random website or platform on the dark
web or something. But this is actually part of a
bigger trend because X isn't the only pathway to this kind of non
consensual intimate image generation tool.
A new report titled Mapping the New Defied Tools Ecosystem
explored this phenomenon further.
So for a bit of context, the report was published on Monday
by the Institute of Strategic Dialogue, which is an
independent research organization based in London.
And the research they do is typically around individual
rights, democratic process, national security and public
safety. In this report, researchers
explored the pathways users take to find nudified tools, which is
obviously apps platforms features that allow users to
generate non consensual intimate images.
They also explored how the ecosystem operates more broadly,
as well as how this content is circulated.
One of the more concerning, yet perhaps unsurprising findings is
that a lot of this takes place on mainstream social media
platforms as opposed to more fringe platforms like 4 Chan.
So I thought I would recap some of the key findings.
After identifying a total of 181 websites offering tools that
allow users to generate nudified images or videos of real people,
the researchers found that these sites hit approximately 40
million unique visitors per month.
And they also found that only two of them included measures to
verify that users were over 18 years of age.
While it's not a majority, more than 5.7 million visits to these
sites and apps containing notified tools came from
mainstream social media platforms.
YouTube X, Reddit, and Facebook are the top four, with both
YouTube and X facilitating over 1,000,000 visits each.
I'm curious if you guys are surprised about these platforms
being the top four. At first glance, I was a little
bit surprised by Facebook, but then the more I thought about it
and considering everything that just happened with Muse AI that
I just covered, it's actually not that surprising.
And also, I do feel like I could see Facebook's user base going
to platforms where you can adjust an image or generate an
image using AI. Nevertheless, YouTube was the
highest on this list and as the report reads, quote the top
platform identified in terms of referrals to the top ten
websites analyzed with YouTube, with links to the site on the
platform resulting in over 1.82 million visits.
Manual searches on YouTube identified numerous videos
promoting specific Notify apps and even providing information
on how to get Quote Undress AI promo codes.
This seems in direct conflict with Youtubes policy restricting
the promotion or linking of harmful external content.
And as far as how these websites operate, a lot of them use a
freemium model which is a token based or tiered subscription
monetization model. So people also would have to pay
to use these tools, whether that be through PayPal, Stripe,
crypto, etcetera. The researchers even identified
another layout to this monetization strategy quote in
which individual non consensual intimate image content creators
or resellers use third party creator economy platforms such
as Patreon to sell access to deepfake content or generation
services. Which is obviously very
disturbing that they are making a business out of this.
While YouTube had the most referral links in the data set
for the report, X was the most prevalent social media platform
when it came to the distribution of gendered deepfake related
posts as well. As they explained, X was quote
used for direct content creation request via in platform croc
function and for promotion of notification sites.
I presume Crocs undressing scandal is a major reason behind
such a high number of direct content creation requests.
At first the feature was available to everyone, then it
was restricted, but not entirely.
It was first limited to premium paid users, which was disturbing
for many reasons because Gruck was still able to create the
images and then X was essentially profiting off it.
But since then it seemed to have been restricted further.
X has also faced multiple lawsuits over the generation of
these sexual non consensual images.
And while X has said that more restrictions are in place, it
does seem that users continue to bypass them.
According to an investigation by Wired from just last month.
The publication found quote dozens of nudified deepfake
images and videos on Grok's website, including non
consensual depictions of celebrity and at least one
prominent US politician. So it's clear that it is an
ongoing issue on X and I'm not sure if it will ever be fully
resolved at this stage or at least as with X as we currently
know it. But actually quick side note on
X. The platform is also making
headlines this week because they did I recently announced A tweak
to its algorithm to boost the visibility of your mutuals, and
many users have taken this as a win.
But anyway, it is obviously really important to call
attention to reports like this and findings like this because
it does continue to be an ongoing form of harassment that
disproportionately impacts and harms women.
And I will also link the report in the description if you're
interested in reading more about it.
OK that brings me to my last story for today which is
character AI is dabbling in micro dramas.
We have covered micro dramas here on mini tech but I don't
actually think we've covered character AI.
Micro dramas are basically like mini soap operas which are
essentially short form video clips that are part of a bigger
series. The AI generated fruit.
Love Island would probably be a UTC version I guess of this but
it honestly spans way more content than that.
For a little bit more context, it has been gaining popularity
in China for years and only now is making its way into other
markets. And I've also seen claims that
micro dramas or micro series like these are the future of
streaming. And I'd definitely be curious to
hear what you guys think about that industry wise.
I've also seen actors note how this kind of work is much easier
to kind of get your foot in the door because there are so many
more opportunities. But at the same time, I did
actually see a TikTok earlier this week from an actor saying
that she feels like AI micro dramas becoming increasingly
popular because she's singing less and less, costing calls for
these types of roles. I will inside that TikTok here
if I can find it, you know? I was like, yeah, I'm not
worried about AI taking our jobs.
They're taking them. They're taking our jobs because
there used to be 15 casting calls a day for vertical micro
dramas, whatever. Now there's one, maybe 2, and
that's my main form of income. So I'm a little bit.
Nervous, I can't lie. It's been it's been fast, but
also slow. Like I'm getting auditions for
bigger stuff, which is exciting, except for that isn't not
consistent income. Like yes, a big movie audition
is like so exciting. The likelihood of booking that.
Or like. That paying my next month's rent
low, so that's a little bit scary.
Now Character AI is an AI platform where you can build,
customize, and chat with different characters, and they
may be original characters, they could be historical figures or
anything in between. I remember Brittany Broski made
a couple videos using Character AIA few years ago.
That was really when it came under my radar.
Personally. I remember she even made a
character on Character AI but I can't remember what it was
called. If anyone remembers please let
me know. But Character AI has faced
significant controversy since then.
In 2024, a mother filed a civil suit against Character AI,
alleging that her 14 year old son died by suicide after
communicating with the chatbot. The family has since settled the
lawsuit, and Character AI has also announced new safety
features over the years. And now it seems like they're
pivoting a little bit and trying their hand at micro dramas.
So last week Character AI announced its CAI series which
is quote a new micro dramas offering of original short form
vertical series created by our in house studio team.
Per the platform's blog post, they also add that the team is
made-up of people with credits across Netflix, Nickelodeon,
DreamWorks and more. Though I should also say that
Character AI does note that these dramas were also created
with AI production tools, so it does seem to be a mixture of
both human and AI. To start up this offering, there
are three shows. The 1st is called last summer
which is a romance anime, the second one is called the
nighttime game which is a quote UN quote Gen.
Z paranormal horror and the last one is Eden Fall which is a
survival drama on why character AI is kind of going down this
path. The Hollywood Reporter
hypothesizes that quote. The move into micro drama seems
like an attempt to diversify a business that is facing
significant headwinds, moving it beyond the kinds of intimate
companion style relationships that give rise to many problems.
And while that might be part of the reasoning, I should note
that they aren't just producing these micro dramas, they are
doing things a little bit differently.
After watching over 18, users can chat with characters from
each series on character AI, and it seems to be that they can
really talk about anything, whether that be the characters
relationship with other characters, talk about specific
moments, or even role play storylines from the series.
It's kind of giving interactive fan fiction in that respect.
As the blog post continues, quote that creates A deeper
connection between fans and characters and gives our studio
team a new feedback loop as we learn which characters, worlds,
and stories people want to spend more time with.
I will say this does feel very 2026, but better off or worse
with the crossover of AI chat bots and micro dramas.
I do think there is quite a slippery slope here because
character AI has already been through a wrongful death lawsuit
as I've covered, which is tied to the parasocial relationship
ship someone develops with a chat bot.
I don't even know if parasocial is the right word here, but it
is some kind of deep emotional attachment.
And this new format and the ability to chat with the
characters after engaging with the series is arguably built on
that same dynamic and engagement strategy.
For a platform that maybe should try to limit these relationships
a little bit. That format doesn't really seem
to do that at first glance. I'd be curious to see how people
interact with it if they do. I also do think this
conversation is related to a bigger conversation we're
constantly having around AI companions, like AI girlfriends
that a lot of young men are building unhealthy relationships
with. But I'm definitely curious to
hear what you guys think about this and the connection of micro
dramas and talking with those characters.
Whether you think that is something that we could see down
the line with more mainstream TV shows or is that just a very
like chronically online thing? OK, that brings us.
To the end of Mini Tech Scroll for today.
I really hope you guys enjoyed. Lauren will speak to you
tomorrow and I will be back next week.
Thanks for listening. Bye.
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