A recent report released by NBC News on Thursday, February 8, 2024, Taylor Swift, the celebrated singer-songwriter, finds herself ensnared in a web of manipulated media falsely portraying her as a supporter of former President Donald Trump and a proponent of election denialism.
These misleading images and videos have been disseminated on the platform X, garnering widespread attention and sparking concerns regarding the platform’s ability to curb the proliferation of deceptive content.
The manipulated media on X, comprising both images and video clips, surfaced shortly after fake nude images of Swift gained traction on the platform, underscoring X’s ongoing struggle to regulate the dissemination of counterfeit and harmful content.
While some of the deepfake content featuring Swift purportedly endorsing Trump carries warning labels indicating its lack of authenticity, many shares and reposts initially lacked such warnings.
Deepfakes, utilizing artificial intelligence techniques to manipulate authentic media, have notably targeted celebrities and prominent women.
Among the most notable deepfakes featuring Swift is a video allegedly depicting her at the Grammy Awards holding a sign proclaiming “Trump won” and “Democrats cheated!” However, the video has been doctored to misrepresent Swift’s actual actions.
Despite a community note acknowledging the video’s manipulated nature, it has garnered over 10.3 million views on X.
NBC News uncovered 13 additional posts containing this fake video, with eight lacking community notes or manipulated media labels. One post, without any label, amassed over 72,000 views.
As of the reporting, these videos remain online, raising questions about X’s enforcement of policies against manipulated media.
While some videos were eventually labeled as manipulated media, the delay in action has raised concerns about X’s ability to effectively regulate such content.
In response to the issue, a representative for X stated, “The team was made aware of this AI-generated video, and we took action on almost 100 posts on February 4, 2024, under our Synthetic and Manipulated Media policy. We’re actively monitoring, and when posts are found, they will also be labeled as manipulated media.”
The manipulated media is believed to originate from a pro-Trump X account boasting over 1 million followers, which enjoys X Premium status, including a blue verification checkmark and revenue generation through advertisements.
The account responsible for the manipulated media has posted several other deepfakes on X, some involving Taylor Swift. For instance, a recent post featured an edited video of Swift’s Album of the Year acceptance speech at the Grammys, incorporating voice-cloning technology to make it appear as though Swift was endorsing Trump and denigrating Joe Biden.
While X seems to be the primary platform for the dissemination of manipulated media featuring Swift, other social media platforms have also grappled with moderating disinformation.
Searching “Taylor Swift Trump” on Instagram yielded a post containing the fake video without any content labels or indications of its falsity. On Facebook, no fake video was found, but an AI-generated altered image of Swift and Trump was surfaced.
Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, added a filter labeling the altered photo/video and provided a link to a fact-checking article following NBC News’ inquiry.
YouTube showed multiple uploads of the fake video of Swift holding the Trump sign, none of which were labeled as manipulated or false media. TikTok also featured two videos containing the fake Swift edit, indicating the widespread dissemination of this misleading content across various platforms.
