Muse, Meta’s new AI agent, now uses social media handles formerly controlled by Muse, the English rock band. The exact circumstances surrounding how the accounts changed hands are unclear, but it has once again raised questions about the ability of Meta and other major platforms to requisition usernames when it suits them.
Muse, the group, which registered its name in 1999, according to its wiki, has been using the nickname @muse on Instagram and on X for years. But earlier this summer, fans noticed that the band’s Instagram username appeared to change to @museband. The change happened in July, according to The Independentalthough Reddit users seem to have spotted a change in early June.
Regardless, by the time Meta officially unveiled Muse the AI Agent on Tuesday, the social media company was using the handle @Muse for its new agent. Likewise, the band formerly used the handle @Muse on X, but now also uses @museband on that platform. It’s unclear exactly when this change took place, but it appears to have caused tension since Mark Zuckerberg’s initial posts about Muse’s agent apparently tagged the group’s account, as follows. New York Times » underlined journalist Mike Isaac. And early posts from other Meta leaders also inexplicably tagged the group, which Issac said was a “bug.”
best bug in Twitter history pic.twitter.com/0VORftYfPn
– rat king 🐀 (@MikeIsaac) September 8, 2026
Although details of the changes have not been made public, some fans have expressed disappointment over the group name being used for an AI feature. As the independent note, Muse has written songs that are “heavily inspired by the fears and anxieties surrounding technology and how it could be used for social oppression”.
Meta did not immediately respond to requests for comment, nor did representatives for the group. But this isn’t the first time an Instagram account has changed hands around the time Meta has made a major announcement.
The company obtained the @Meta Instagram account, which had been used by an independent motorcycle magazine of the same name, shortly after announcing that it was changing the company’s name from Facebook to Meta in 2021. The magazine never publicly commented on how this name change happened, but its editor-in-chief wrote at the time that it felt like a “punch in the gut” to see a “corporate Goliath” take on the identity it had used since 2014. The magazine later changed its name. name.
Similarly, when Meta launched Threads in 2023, it did not control the @threads handle on Instagram. The account was instead used by a small fashion retailer called American Threads. But a month later, Meta suddenly took control of the account.
Meta has said little about how these name changes are going. In 2021, the company told me it had made no legal threats against the motorcycle magazine, but did not respond to questions about whether it had contacted or paid the publisher. “We allow people to change their username on Instagram,” a spokesperson told me at the time.
Officially, Meta doesn’t allow people to buy, sell, or trade Instagram usernames, although sought-after handles have been known to trade hands, sometimes through shady channels. People have also lost desirable handles on X in a seemingly unofficial way. The person who controlled @X before Elon Musk took over the company was informed in an email in 2023 that he was losing his username, although he claims he was offered products in return. That same year, the person who had been using the handle @music since 2007 had their username suddenly changed so that it could be used as an official X account. More recently, X opened a “handle marketplace” allowing users to officially purchase inactive usernames.
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