X lifts ban on Taylor Swift search after explicit deepfakes spread
- Explicit deepfakes of Taylor Swift circulated on X last week
- Days after putting a ban on searches of her name, X lifted it
- X: 'Search has been re-enabled and we will continue to be vigilant'
FILE – Taylor Swift attends an in conversation with Taylor Swift event at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 9, 2022. Swift’s latest album “Anti-Hero” released on Oct. 21. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
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(NewsNation) — X lifted its ban on searches for Taylor Swift Monday night after several days following the spread of explicit deepfakes.
“Search has been re-enabled and we will continue to be vigilant for any attempt to spread this content and will remove it if we find it,” Joe Benarroch, head of business operations at X, told The Associated Press.
Since Saturday, Swift’s name could not be searched on the social media platform, giving users an error message that read, “Something went wrong. Try reloading.”
The search was disabled after deepfakes portraying Swift as nude and in sexual scenarios had begun circulating on the platform. It is not clear where the images came from, but they had a watermark that suggested they were from a website known for creating deepfakes of celebrities.
In turn, Swifties mass reported the images and flooded the hashtag #TaylorSwiftAI with positive messages about her.
In a statement last week, X said it had a “zero tolerance policy” on the sharing of nonconsensual graphic imagery but didn’t mention Swift by name.
