'My outfit, voice and mannerisms were stolen': Influencer cloned by AI says it took 'thousands' of reports before clip finally removed by Instagram
Paige Davis, a full-time content creator from Los Angeles, was cloned using a short-lived feature rolled out by Meta
An influencer who was cloned using AI on Instagram says it took several weeks and multiple reports before the clip was finally taken down by Meta.
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Paige Davis, a full-time content creator from Los Angeles, had complained to Meta, which owns Instagram, after discovering that one of her videos had been cloned using AI without her knowledge.
There's nothing immediately "off" about the cloned video. It shows a woman with dark hair and neck tattoos sitting in the front seat of a car, who makes a cheeky joke about Gen Z mocking millennials for "rocking a side part and saying LOL" - all the while "wearing a hoodie and pimple patches out to dinner".
But the woman isn't real - she was created using AI. The audio was pulled from a video Paige posted several weeks prior, but a new face has been edited onto Paige's body.
Without her knowledge, the 34-year-old had been automatically ‘opted in’ to Muse Image, a brief feature rolled out by Meta on July 7 which let users use videos and photos posted on public accounts to generate AI content without obtaining consent.
Read more: Meta scraps AI Instagram feature days after launch following privacy backlash
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Muse Image was pulled by the tech giant just three days after it launched, following backlash over privacy concerns and disgruntled users who had been automatically "opted in".
Paige, a lifestyle influencer with more than 30,000 followers on Instagram, said she only discovered the video’s existence when her followers sent her the clip on July 11 - the same day that Meta scrapped the feature.
“Both people who sent it were like, wait, isn't this your voice?” she told LBC.
“And I was like, are you kidding me? It's my outfit, my voice, my mannerisms, my dirty seatbelt," she went on.
"It was the craziest thing I've ever seen. I've never seen someone steal something video-wise that perfectly before.”
After investigating, Paige discovered all the videos on the account were using the same AI-generated woman, leading her to wonder “whether it’s all stolen content, or if it’s just me”.
The account that posted the video was created in Romania in March 2026, and since LBC contacted Meta, it has been taken down.
The “scary thing”, Paige added, was that if the video “had never gone viral, I never would have known that she stole it.”
Despite Meta revoking Muse Image, Paige says she struggled to get the video taken down. She says she reported the video to the tech company and even posted a video documenting her ordeal, which went viral and racked up 700k views, leading thousands of her followers to submit reports on her behalf - but it was still weeks before action was taken.
“It took probably about 10 days or so. Then I got a notification saying this is being taken down," she said.
"But the very next day, I got another notification saying: 'This does not go against community guidelines', and the video was back up 24 hours later.'”
After submitting an intellectual property report, Meta "finally took it down".
As a full-time content creator who relies on social media as her primary source of income, Paige's concern is that others could be profiting off her videos.
Since the video about her experience went viral, Paige says that "dozens" of people have been in touch, saying they have gone through a similar experience.
"What's upsetting about this whole incident is that if my video of me talking about the situation did not go viral, I would not have had that many people report my video for me," she said.
"Other smaller creators are having their stuff stolen, and they have nobody to help advocate for them because they don't have the platform."
A spokesperson for Meta said: "Earlier this month we announced that one way for people to generate images in Meta AI is by @-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 heard the feedback that this feature missed the mark, so it's no longer available."