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Nonconsensual deepfake porn of Taylor Swift went viral on X this week , with one post garnering more than45 million views,24,000 reposts and hundreds of thousands of likes before it was removed .
The pop mavin has one of the earthly concern ’s most dedicated , extremely on-line , and incomprehensibly massive fanbases . Now , the Swifties are out for blood .
When mega - fandoms get organized , they ’re capable of vast thing , like when K - pappa fans reservedhundreds of ticketsto a Donald Trump rally in an attempt to tank attending numbers . As the 2024 U.S. presidential election approaches , some initiate have eventheorizedabout thepowerof Swifties as a voting axis .
But today is n’t Election Day , and Swifties are focalise on something more immediate : spend a penny the musician ’s nonconsensual deepfakes as difficult to find out as potential . Now , when you research terms like “ taylor swift ai ” or “ taylor fleet deepfake ” on X , you ’ll find K of Charles William Post from fans trying to bury the AI - generated content . On X , the phrase “ PROTECT TAYLOR western fence lizard ” has been swerve with over 36,000 posts .
Sometimes , these fandom - driven campaigns can cross a rail line . While some fans are encouraging each other to dox the decade users who circulated the deepfakes , others worry about push harassment with more molestation , especially when the suspected culprit has a relatively uncouth name , and in some fount , the Swifties could be going after the ill-timed bozo . With so many thousands of fans taking part in the case , it ’s inevitable that not every Swiftie will be part of the same unified front — and some are more in mite with the “ Reputation ” epoch than others .
a message for people search taylor swift aipic.twitter.com/2Q2AhkXjvL
— 🖤 ( @thecclovers)January 25 , 2024
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With the advance of approachable reproductive AI tools , this torment tactics has become so widespread that last class , the FBI and outside law enforcer issue a jointstatementabout the terror of sextortion . consort toresearchfrom cybersecurity firm Deeptrace , about 96 % of deepfakes are pornographic , and they almost always sport women .
“ Deepfake pornography is a phenomenon that entirely targets and harm women , ” the report register . This abuse has evenseepedintoschools , where underage girl have been targeted by their classmate with explicit , nonconsensual deepfakes . So , for some Taylor Swift fans , this is n’t just a thing of protecting the star . They realize that these flack can occur to any of them , not just celebrities , and that they have to agitate to typeset the precedent that this behavior is intolerable .
protecttaylorswift#taylorswift#fyp#texas#taylornation#erastour#erastourtaylorswift#taylorswifterastour
♬ original audio – Cookie 🍪 LeAnn@71
“ She is engage the hit for us right now , all , ” said a TikTok exploiter named LeAnn in avideourging users to defend Swift . “ In protecting her , you ’re going to be protecting yourself , and your girl . ”
allot to404 Media , the persona originated on a Telegram chat that ’s dedicate to creating nonconsensual , explicit images of woman using generative AI . The grouping direct its substance abuser to generate AI deepfakes on Microsoft’sDesigner ; though this kind of message violatesMicrosoft policy , its AI is still equal to of creating it , and users have created simple workarounds to bypass basic safety peter .
Microsoft and X did not respond to a postulation for remark before issue .
taylor swift fans are genuinely awful . AI pornography of her goes viral and they mobilize with over 200k military post to protect Taylor , cry for natural process , and getting the accounts that distributed the porn suspended . they literally achieve stuff our sound system ca n’t
— rosie ( @jasminericegirl)January 25 , 2024
Congress is making some legislative clearance to criminalize nonconsensual deepfakes . Virginia hasbanneddeepfake revenge porn , and Representative Yvette Clarke ( D - NY ) late re-introduce theDEEPFAKES Accountability Act , which she first proposed in 2019 . While critic occupy about the difficulty of legislating the dark corner of the web , some say the nib could at least institute some legal common law of protection from this abuse . Swift ’s buff also cry tending to the failures of Ticketmaster , the amusement mega - caller that also owns Live Nation . In a particularly memorable assertion , FTC chair Lina Khan said last twelvemonth that the calamitous experience to grease one’s palms tickets for Swift ’s Eras tour “ ended up converting more gen Z - Er into anti - monopolizer overnight than anything I could have done . ”
This abuse campaign is emblematical of the problems with AI ’s steep ascent : Companies are buildingtoo fastto properly assess the risks of the products they ’re shipping . So , peradventure Taylor Swift fans will take up the fight for serious-minded regulation of fast - developing AI product — but if it takes a aggregative torment run against a celebrity for undertested AI model to look any sort of examination , then that ’s a whole other problem .
Ticketmaster face antitrust scrutiny after Taylor Swift ticket pandemonium
