The recent launch of the new artificial intelligence agent of Meta, named Muse (name also used by Microsoft for its AI), has raised a new controversy related to account management on major digital platforms.
The famous English rock band of the same name, holder of the trademark since 1999, has been forced to relinquish its historic social handles to make room for the new product.
This event draws attention to the enormous power of Silicon Valley companies, able to reclaim high-value usernames without providing transparent explanations to users.
Meta has taken Muse band’s usernames for its own AI
For many years, the British music group has used the @muse handle on both Instagram and the X platform (formerly Twitter). However, between June and July, the more attentive fans noticed a change: the group’s official Instagram profile was suddenly renamed to @museband. The same fate befell the X account.
When Mark Zuckerberg’s company officially unveiled its own artificial intelligence on Tuesday, the new virtual agent operated under the username @Muse.
The transition proved far from flawless. During the early stages of the announcement, Zuckerberg’s posts and those of other Meta executives initially incorrectly tagged the rock band’s profile. A mishap quickly noticed by New York Times journalist Mike Isaac, who reported that the company’s executives had dismissed the matter as a simple system error.
The paradox and the public’s reaction
The lack of public details about the terms of this transfer has generated a strong sense of frustration among the band’s supporters. The situation takes on markedly ironic overtones, considering that much of Muse’s music is built on lyrics that explore the fears surrounding technological progress and the risks of social oppression.
To see the band’s name absorbed to promote an AI-based tool represents, for many listeners, an uncomfortable contradiction. To date, neither the band’s representatives nor Meta’s spokespeople have responded to requests for clarification raised by the press.
Controversial precedents
The practice of acquiring pre-existing social profiles in conjunction with major commercial announcements is not new for the Menlo Park-based multinational. In 2021, concurrently with Facebook’s rebranding to Meta, the company secured the Instagram handle @meta, up to that point managed by an independent motorcycle magazine active since 2014.
The editor-in-chief of the publication described the incident as a hard blow inflicted by a corporate giant. Although the tech company had denied using threats of legal action, it refused to clarify the existence of any potential financial compensation.
A similar script unfolded in 2023 with the launch of Threads: a small clothing retailer named American Threads suddenly lost control of its own handle @threads in favor of the new application.
This kind of appropriation is not limited to Meta’s proprietary services. The X platform has also recorded similar episodes of arbitrary confiscation of usernames. Before Elon Musk took control of the company, the original user of the account @x was informed by email in 2023 that they would lose their username, receiving in return a simple offer of company-branded merchandise.
In the same year, the owner of the handle @music, active since 2007, underwent a forced change to allow the creation of an official X channel.
Although formal policies prohibit the buying and selling of these identifiers, the reality of the facts shows how large corporations routinely manage to circumvent restrictions to cater to their own needs.
