Fake explicit images of Taylor Swift take over social media

The star's fans and lawmakers condemned the images, likely generated by artificial intelligence, after being shared with millions of Twitter users. social media.

< p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Fake sexually explicit images of Taylor Swift, likely generated by artificial intelligence, spread rapidly across social media platforms this week, disturbing fans who saw them and reigniting calls from lawmakers to protect women and crack down on platforms and technologies that spread such images.

An image shared by a user on X was viewed 47 million times before the account was suspended on Thursday. X suspended several accounts that posted fake images of Ms. Swift, but the images were shared on other social media platforms and continued to spread despite those companies' efforts to remove them.

While X said he was working to remove the images, fans of the pop superstar flooded the platform in protest. They posted related keywords, along with the phrase "Protect Taylor Swift," in an effort to drown out explicit images and make them harder to find.

Reality Defender, a cybersecurity company focused on AI detection, determined with 90% confidence that the images were created using diffusion modeling, a technology based on AI accessible through more than 100,000 publicly available applications and models, said Ben Colman, co-founder and head of the company. executive.

Like AI. With the industry booming, companies rushed to release tools that let users create images, videos, text, and audio recordings using simple messages. The A.I. These tools are very popular, but they have made it easier and cheaper than ever to create so-called deepfakes, which depict people doing or saying things they never did.

Researchers now fear that deepfakes are becoming a powerful force of disinformation, allowing ordinary internet users to create non-consensual nude images or embarrassing portraits of political candidates. Artificial intelligence was used to create fake robocalls from President Biden during the New Hampshire primary, and Ms. Swift was featured this month in fake ads selling kitchenware.

We are having trouble retrieving article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode, please exit and log in to your Times account, or subscribe to the entire Times.