Meta Rolls Out Feature to Protect Creators’ Reels From Being Copied

Meta is introducing a new tool designed to help Reels creators whose original work is being copied and reused without permission.

On Monday, the company announced “Facebook content protection,” a feature intended to detect when a creator’s original Reels posted to Facebook appear elsewhere without consent.

“Facebook is rolling out content protection, a new mobile tool for creators that automatically protects your original reels, alerts you when matches to those reels are detected on Facebook or Instagram, and helps you take action if your work is used without permission,” the company writes in a blog post.

According to Meta, the new tool continuously scans Facebook and Instagram for Reels that match at least part of an enrolled creator’s original Facebook post. Creators will receive alerts about any matches and will see statistics linked to the copied material, including view counts and the number of followers the account posting the match has.

“Once you enroll in content protection, every original reel that you post to Facebook will get automatically protected,” the company explains. “You can also protect eligible reels you posted prior to enrolling by manually selecting ones you wish to protect at any time.”

Creators using the tool will be able to view which accounts have shared their work and can choose from several actions. The “track” setting lets them add a notice showing that the material originated from their account, and it gives them access to view counts for the reposted clip. They can also choose to block a match, which stops the copied Reel from being viewable on both Facebook and Instagram. Meta says this action does not result in any additional penalties for the account that posted the reused material. A third option, “release,” removes the match from the creator’s dashboard and ends any insight into how it is performing, while keeping the reposted clip available on Meta’s platforms.

Through the “Professional” dashboard, creators can also permit specific accounts to reuse their original content. They can place these accounts on an “allow list” so matches from those users do not trigger notifications. Accounts can be added to the allow list at any time by navigating to the content protection overview tab, then to “Tools,” and then to “Allow” List.

Meta says content protection is part of a broader effort to support original creators on Facebook and prevent them from being overshadowed by copycat accounts. In July, Meta said that the company had removed about 10 million profiles impersonating major creators and had penalized more than 500,000 accounts for spam.

However, while Facebook content protection may help address unauthorized use of Reels, it does not protect against the theft of photos on the platform. PetaPixel previously reported that nature photographers have warned that AI-generated content pages on Facebook are stealing their images, altering them with AI, and re-uploading them without credit while presenting the pictures as real wildlife.

Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.