Those searching for the world’s most famous pop star on the X platform right now will not yield any results.
X users who search for “Taylor Swift” will be blocked from doing so after explicit yet digitally fabricated images of the singer were shared across the platform.
“Posts aren’t loading right now,” an automated message states “Try again later.”
Joe Benarroch, head of business operations at X, told The Wall Street Journal that this is “a temporary action and done with an abundance of caution as we prioritize safety on this issue.”
Twitter/X blocked searches for Taylor Swift temporarily as a way of prioritizing safety following AI images, head of business operations says:
“This is a temporary action and done with an abundance of caution as we prioritize safety on this issue” pic.twitter.com/BJJs8rqqbk
— Pop Base (@PopBase) January 28, 2024
The altered images of Swift were first circulated on Wednesday, leading to complaints from her fans, who responded by flooding the platform with real images.
Her fans even managed to make the phrase “protect Taylor Swift” one of the platform’s trending topics as they urged the company to take swift action against accounts promoting the false images.
swifties coming together to protect taylor this is my favourite genre
RESPECT TAYLOR SWIFT
PROTECT TAYLOR SWIFT
TAYLOR SWIFT AI— lena ⸆⸉ (@redwinets) January 25, 2024
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In a statement that did not mention Swift by name, the company declared they had a “zero-tolerance policy” about the sharing of such material and users caught doing so would be restricted or suspended.
“Our teams are actively removing all identified images and taking appropriate actions against the accounts responsible for posting them,” the company said.
“We’re closely monitoring the situation to ensure that any further violations are immediately addressed, and the content is removed.”
According to a report from The Daily Mail, Swift was left “furious” about the images, which have been seen a reported 27 million times.
“Whether or not legal action will be taken is being decided but there is one thing that is clear: these fake AI-generated images are abusive, offensive, exploitative, and done without Taylor’s consent and/or knowledge,” a source told the paper.
The issue even caught the notice of the White House, with press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre describing the rise of the AI-generated images as “alarming.”
“We know that lax enforcement disproportionately impacts women and they also impact girls, sadly, who are the overwhelming targets,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre during a briefing.
She said social media companies, such as X, “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.”
