X-rated AI images of Taylor Swift spread on X, spurring calls for crackdown

Sexually explicit AI-generated images of Taylor Swift circulated on X (formerly Twitter) this week, highlighting just how difficult it is to stop AI-generated deepfakes from being created and shared widely.

The fake images of the world’s most famous pop star circulated for nearly the entire day on Wednesday, racking up tens of millions of views before they were removed, reports CNN.

Like the majority of other social media platforms, X has policies that ban the sharing of “synthetic, manipulated, or out-of-context media that may deceive or confuse people and lead to harm.”

Without explicitly naming Swift, X said in a statement: “Our teams are actively removing all identified images and taking appropriate actions against the accounts responsible for posting them.”

Posting Non-Consensual Nudity (NCN) images is strictly prohibited on X and we have a zero-tolerance policy towards such content. Our teams are actively removing all identified images and taking appropriate actions against the accounts responsible for posting them. We're closely…

— Safety (@Safety) <a href=«https://twitter.com/Safety/status/1750765055380263272?ref_src=» https:>January 26, 2024

A report from 404 Media claimed that the images may have originated in a group on Telegram, where users share explicit AI-generated images of women often made with Microsoft Designer. The group’s users reportedly joked about how the images of Swift went viral on X.

The term “Taylor Swift AI” also trended on the platform at the time, promoting the images even further and pushing them in front of more eyes. Fans of Swift did their best to bury the images by flooding the platform with positive messages about Swift, using related keywords. The sentence “Protect Taylor Swift” also