Taylor Swift Searches Return To X; “Re-Enabled” After Explicit AI Deepfakes Stripped Off Platform, For Now – Update
UPDATE, 6: 25 PM: One day after Taylor Swift kind of took over the AFC Championship game between the victorious Kansas City Chiefs and the Baltimore Ravens, X has made it possible to once again search for the superstar on the Elon Musk-owned platform.
Earlier on the weekend, X pulled the plug on looking for the much searched Swift after AI generated explicit images of the performer proliferated all over social media. Deeply disturbing, the deepfakes kept popping up as soon as they were excavated off one feed or another. So, X took the nuclear option.
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Swift said nothing.
Today, as real images of Swift celebrating the Chiefs’ win and entry into this year’s Super Bowl with boyfriend Travis Kelce, who is a tight end for KC, wallpapered the media, the social media outlet formerly known as Twitter said Swift searches are back.
“Search has been re-enabled and we will continue to be vigilant for any attempt to spread this content and will remove it if we find it,” the Linda Yaccarino-run firm said in a statement Monday evening.
AKA – Whac-A-Deepfake
PREVIOUSLY, JAN 27 PM: Taylor Swift’s image problem is apparently being cleaned up by the X social media platform.
On Saturday, searching “Taylor Swift” and “Taylor Swift AI” on the service triggered a message that read, “Something went wrong. Try reloading.” However, a search for “Taylor Swift pictures” brought up harmless fan shots of the singer.
The moves come as increasing calls to limit deepfakes on social media are mounting. SAG-AFTRA and the White House have stated their concerns, as has Microsoft’s CEO.
Deepfakes portraying Swift nude and in sexual scenarios were circulated on X Wednesday. Artificial intelligence tools can develop new, fake images from other photos. This week, dozens of graphic images were uploaded to Celeb Jihad showing Swift in compromising positions. The images spread to other social media as well.
The photos were viewed more than 27 million times and had more than 260,000 likes in 19 hours before the account that posted them was suspended.
The singer’s fans have flooded the hashtag “Taylor Swift AI” with positive messages about her, according to an analysis performed by Blackbird.AI. The hashtag “Protect Taylor Swift” also began to trend on X.
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