X Pauses Taylor Swift Searches as Deepfake Explicit Images Spread


Attempts to search for her name on the site resulted in an error message and a prompt for users to retry their search, which added, “Don’t fret — it’s not your fault.”

Searches for variations of her name such as “taylorswift” and “Taylor Swift AI” turned up the same error messages.

“This is a temporary action and done with an abundance of caution as we prioritize safety on this issue,” Joe Benarroch, head of business operations at X, said in a statement to multiple news outlets.

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After the images began spreading online, the singer’s devoted fanbase of “Swifties” quickly mobilized, launching a counteroffensive on X and a #ProtectTaylorSwift hashtag to flood it with more positive images of the pop star. Some said they were reporting accounts that were sharing the deepfakes.

The deepfake-detecting group Reality Defender said it tracked a deluge of nonconsensual pornographic material depicting Swift, particularly on X. Some images also made their way to Meta-owned Facebook and other social media platforms.

The researchers found at least a couple dozen unique AI-generated images. The most widely shared were football-related, showing a painted or bloodied Swift that objectified her and in some cases inflicted violent harm on her deepfake persona.

In 2019, a report released by the AI firm DeepTrace Labs showed these images were overwhelmingly weaponized against women. Most of the victims, it said, were Hollywood actors and South Korean K-pop singers.

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