By Isabella Darcy
Arts & Entertainment Editor
Taylor Swift’s fans came to her defense last week after sexually explicit, artificial intelligence generated deepfake photos of the 34-year-old singer went viral on some social media platforms.
Swift’s fans, commonly known as Swifties, are notorious for their eminent support of the singer. When the explicit deepfakes began circulating the internet, many Swifties jumped to essentially create a task force against the images.
The deepfaked images especially gained traction on social media platform X, with “Taylor Swift AI” trending on the platform on Jan. 24.
A single post featuring deepfaked photos garnered upwards of 47 million views on X, according to Billboard.
Users searching for “Taylor Swift” on X could find the explicit images for days until X ultimately took away the ability to search for Swift’s name on the platform. Those who attempted to search for the singer's name would be met with an error message reading, “Posts aren’t loading right now. Try again.”
In between the time when the images first appeared on the platform and the actions taken by X, Swifties worked to make the deepfakes as inaccessible as possible.
Some fans reported posts containing the deepfakes, as well as accounts that interacted with the photos. X removed many accounts and posts that spread the images from its platform.
Swifties also moved to fill X search results for “Taylor Swift” by flooding the platform with posts containing the words “Protect Taylor Swift” accompanied with positive, real images of Swift. By Jan. 25 “Protect Taylor Swift” was trending on X.
As of Tuesday morning, the ability to search for Swift’s name on X has been restored, according to Bloomberg.
Swift is not the only celebrity who has been affected by AI. Much like deepfake images, AI can convincingly replicate a person's voice. Some singers have experienced their voice being utilized without their permission.
In August 2023, Selena Gomez took to her Instagram story to address an AI generated rendition of her voice used in an altered version of “Starboy,” a song by her former boyfriend, The Weeknd.
“Scary,” the 31-year-old singer wrote in the story post.
Drake also took to his Instagram story in April 2023 after an AI rendition of his voice was used to cover Ice Spice’s “Munch.”
“This is the final straw AI,” the 37-year-old artist wrote in the story post.
With AI currently being largely unregulated, virtually anyone can create deepfakes of a person's voice or being. This poses a risk of people, particularly well-known celebrities, being portrayed in a misleading manner.
Because of the lack of regulations on AI, in Swift’s case, her fans protected her more than any legislation.
