25 January 2024

HEADLINE: Explicit AI images Of Taylor Swift Get Millions Of Views On X | The Daily Dot

On the site, “Taylor Swift AI” trended, which included links to the images.
The Daily Dot attempted to reach X over email but was met with an automated response: “Busy now, please check back later.”
Synthetic media expert Sam Gregory says the issue, whether AI-generated images or deep-fake videos, highlights the ever-growing problem related to AI-generated non-consensual images of a sexual nature.

The Daily Dot

4 hours ago

Explicit AI images Of Taylor Swift Get Millions Of Views On X

Explicit AI images of Taylor Swift got 22 million views before X cracked down

'The Taylor Swift AI images are insane. Actually terrifying that they exist.'

Mikael Thalen

Tech

Posted on Jan 25, 2024 Updated on Jan 25, 2024, 10:16 am CST

X allowed explicit AI-generated images of pop star Taylor Swift to rack up tens of millions of views.

The images, which include depictions of Swift being sexually assaulted by Kansas City Chiefs fans, went viral on Thursday after being posted by X user @Real_Nafu.

The lewd images immediately sparked backlash among Swift’s fans, who organized a mass-reporting campaign to get the post removed.

“the taylor swift ai images are insane. actually terrifying that they exist,” one fan wrote. “please report + don’t give more attention to those tweets. some of these men really need to be locked in a cage and shipped off to mars or smth.”

The effort among Swift’s fans ultimately paid off, resulting in the suspension of the account. The removal, however, only came after the user’s post racked up more than 22 million views. The post had also been bookmarked by users on X more than 71,000 times.

Given the increasingly realistic capabilities of AI, many users compared the images’ spread to “The Fappening,” the massive leak of explicit celebrity photographs in 2014.

“22M views 154k likes on some AI porn of a real life person like some 2024 equivalent of thefappening,” one user wrote. “This site is so unbelievably cooked if this kind of sick shit can just stay up.”

Yet despite the initial removal, X seems to be doing little to delete other posts containing the imagery.

The images have remained visible on some accounts for upwards of six hours, and continue to garner tens of thousands of views. Such posts appear to be in violation of X’s policy regarding synthetic and manipulated media.