X lifted its ban on searches for Taylor Swift after AI-generated nude images of the pop star went viral — sparking outrage that Elon Musk’s social media site wasn’t doing enough to crack down on the deepfakes.
“Search has been re-enabled and we will continue to be vigilant for any attempt to spread this content and will remove if we find it,” Joe Banarroch, head of business operations at the San Francisco-based company formerly known as Twitter, told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.
Despite the company lifting the ban on her full name late Monday night, searches for “Taylor Swift AI” remained blocked, with users getting a message that said: “Something went wrong. Try reloading.”
The nude deepfakes of Swift that were posted on X were viewed 47 million times before the account was suspended.
On Saturday, X began blocking users who searched for Swift in order to “prioritize safety on this issue,” according to Benarroch.
Users were able to get around the ban by typing in the singer’s first name or last name only.
X’s ban on searches came after the White House weighed in on Friday, calling the fake images “alarming” and highlighting that social media companies have a responsibility to prevent the spread of such misinformation.
Unlike more conventional doctored images that have troubled celebrities in the past, the Swift images appear to have been created using an artificial intelligence image-generator that can instantly create new images from a written prompt.
After the images began spreading online, the singer’s devoted fan base of “Swifties” quickly mobilized, launching a counteroffensive on X and a #ProtectTaylorSwift hashtag to flood it with more positive images of the pop star.
Some said they were reporting accounts that were sharing the deepfakes.
Since Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, he has faced criticism for his own controversial posts, prompting many advertisers on the platform to pull back spending out of fear of being associated with harmful content.
The X boss came under fire in recent weeks for the proliferation of antisemitic and neo-Nazi content on the platform.
One of Musk’s first moves in the weeks and months after acquiring the company was to slash headcount from the trust and safety operations division.
X said last week that it will hire 100 full-time staffers to crack down on child sexual exploitation.
The company announced on Friday that it will build a “trust and safety center” in Austin, Texas, where it will hire “in-house agents” who will be tasked with enforcing the site’s content and safety rules.
“X does not have a line of business focused on children, but it’s important that we make these investments to keep stopping offenders from using our platform for any distribution or engagement with CSE content,” Benarroch said.
With Post Wires