A celebrity Deepfake website could be facing the fury of Taylor Swift following the circulation of explicit AI-generated images of the singer on social media.
Swift is the latest victim of Celeb Jihad, a website that creates and circulates inappropriate content about celebrities created by AI and deepfake technology.
What are deepfakes?
Deepfake refers to an image or video that has realistically manipulated faces, voices or actions to misrepresent the person or context of the content.
Celebrities and politicians are popular targets for those who create deepfakes and they are becoming more popular and easier to create thanks to the advances in AI and the public’s access to it.
Access to AI tools such as ChatGPT is also raising questions about issues such as copyright, plagiarism and originality, with the New York Times notably suing OpenAI for copyright infringement.
The usage of AI in several industries is increasing rapidly and was a large concern during the SAG-AFTRA strike, with companies such as Marvel using AI tools to create the title sequence for Secret Invasion.
Deepfakes that have gone viral in the past include a video of Donald Trump supposedly resisting arrest and footage of the Eiffel Tower burning down.
Swift’s reaction
A source close to Taylor Swift told the Daily Mail the singer is deciding whether to take legal action, but ‘there is one thing that is clear: these fake AI-generated images are abusive, offensive, exploitative, and done without Taylor’s consent and/or knowledge.”
The source also said Swift’s ‘circle of family and friends are furious, as are her fans obviously’ and ‘The door needs to be shut on this. Legislation needs to be passed to prevent this, and laws must be enacted.’
Fans and politicians alike are also calling for legislation to be passed, and the White House says social media companies ‘have an important role to play in enforcing their own rules.’
Both Meta and X put out statements condemning the images and telling users they were removing the images, cracking down on explicit content and suspending accounts that shared the images.
When the images were first reported, Swifties took to social media in droves to try and flood the search term ‘Taylor Swift AI’ with positive content about the singer and posts blasting the images and those who were sharing them, as well as calling for political involvement. #ProtectTaylorSwift was also trending.
Countries have gradually been cracking down on the use of deepfake technology as it has grown in popularity, with the UK passing the Online Safety Bill last year and several states passing their own bans.
The use of deepfake technology to create explicit content can also be considered revenge porn, another phenomenon that has recently been legislated against in the UK and US.
This is not the first time Swift has been targeted by Celeb Jihad, as she also threatened to sue them for misidentifying her in a faked nude photo in the past.
As of Saturday night, it appears X has blocked all searches of ‘Taylor Swift’ on their platform.
LJ
January 31, 2024 at 7:29 pm
This is such a vital issue that needs to be addressed by a high level of authority.