Deepfake porn images of Taylor Swift have gone viral. Fans are fighting back
- ‘Swifties’ are flooding social media with positive images of the pop star under the #ProtectTaylorSwift hashtag, after explicit fake images spread to millions
- AI-generated deepfakes of celebrities are growing in popularity and are overwhelmingly weaponised against women
A scourge of pornographic deepfake images generated by artificial intelligence and sexualising people without their consent has hit its most famous victim, singer Taylor Swift, drawing attention to a problem that tech platforms and anti-abuse groups have struggled to solve.
Sexually explicit and abusive fake images of Swift began circulating widely this week on the social media platform X.
Her ardent fan base of “Swifties” quickly mobilised, launching a counteroffensive on the platform formerly known as Twitter and a #ProtectTaylorSwift hashtag to flood it with more positive images of the pop star. Some said they were reporting accounts that were sharing the deepfakes.
The deepfake-detecting group Reality Defender said it tracked a deluge of non-consensual pornographic material depicting Swift, particularly on X. Some images also made their way to Meta-owned Facebook and other social media platforms.
“Unfortunately, they spread to millions and millions of users by the time that some of them were taken down,” said Mason Allen, Reality Defender’s head of growth.