THE social media platform X has restricted users’ ability to search for Taylor Swift due to the virality of explicit AI photos of the singer this week.
As part of an effort to stop the photographs from becoming more viral, X (formerly Twitter) temporarily stopped accepting searches for “Taylor Swift” on Saturday, 27 January 2024.
Taylor Swift is an American singer-songwriter who has majorly influenced the music industry and popular (pop) culture with her singing and songwriting.
The search query ‘Taylor Swift AI’ or ‘Taylor Swift deepfake’ has been trending since the explicit AI images emerged earlier this week. The microblogging platform had previously come under fire for being too slow to regulate the explicit images.
X’s @Safety had on Friday, January 26, 2024 warned users of its zero-tolerance policy and that they were actively removing non-consensual nudity images, but it did not refer to the Pop singer’s situation.
In the post, X stated: “Posting Non-Consensual Nudity (NCN) images is strictly prohibited on X and we have a zero-tolerance policy towards such content.
“Our teams are actively removing all identified images and taking appropriate actions against the accounts responsible for posting them.
“We’re closely monitoring the situation to ensure that any further violations are immediately addressed, and the content is removed. We’re committed to maintaining a safe and respectful environment for all users.”
The viral Taylor Swift photos have gotten the attention of multiple members of the US government, as well as the White House.
White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, stated on January 26, 2024 that the circulating obscene photographs were extremely worrying and that every effort will be made to address the matter.
“So, while social media companies make their own independent decisions about content management, we believe they have an important role to play in enforcing their own rules to prevent the spread of misinformation, and non consensual, intimate imagery of real people,” she stated.
The FactCheckHub had earlier published a report on new patterns in which deepfakes and AI generated contents might play out in 2024 including cyber bullying.
Seasoned fact-checker and researcher Fatimah Quadri has written numerous fact-checks, explainers, and media literacy pieces for The FactCheckHub in an effort to combat information disorder. She can be reached at sunmibola_q on X or [email protected].
