AI-generated explicit photos of Taylor Swift have recently flooded different social media sites, causing alarm among Swifties and even the US government.
Music superstar Swift is the latest victim of pornographic deepfake photos, despite the supposedly strict policies of X (formerly Twitter).
X’s Synthetic and Manipulated Media Policy says “misleading media” includes “media that is significantly and deceptively altered, manipulated, or fabricated, or… that is shared in a deceptive manner or with false context, and… likely to result in widespread confusion on public issues, impact public safety, or cause serious harm.”
One of the AI-generated photos making the rounds shows Swift in an explicit sexual position. According to US media outlets, the post gathered about 27 million views on X for 19 hours before it was taken down.
UK’s Daily Mail reported that, per a source close to Swift, the singer’s camp is eyeing legal action against the perpetrators of the post, decrying it as “fake” and “abusive, offensive, exploitative.”
The phrase “PROTECT TAYLOR SWIFT” trended on Twitter as Swifties fought the post and tried to make the deepfake photos challenging to find on the platform.
US Representative Joe Morelle, meanwhile, said on X that he was astounded by the AI-generated photos of the hitmaker.
Last May 2023, the New York Democrat proposed a bill called the “Preventing Deepfakes of Intimate Images Act” to criminalize the online non-consensual sharing of deepfake images. But the bill has yet to make progress.
In an interview with ABC News, the White House also expressed its alarm over the deepfake images.
“While social media companies make their own independent decisions about content management, we believe they have an important role in enforcing their own rules to prevent the spread of misinformation and non-consensual, intimate imagery of real people,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
She added that a task force has been launched to address the issue of online harassment and that the US Department of Justice has launched a 24/7 desk to help survivors of image-based sexual violence.
According to a Euronews report, a study in October 2023 showed that there was a 550 percent increase in deepfake videos found online compared to 2019.
Most of the AI-generated images were used for pornographic images or videos. However, deepfakes are also being used for political reasons, as in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Associated Press has reported that some images of the war circulating online are also deepfakes.