Following the widespread circulation of fictitious, sexually suggestive photos of the pop singer on social media this week, the social networking platform X has disabled users from searching for Taylor Swift, an executive announced on Sunday.
The error notice “Something went wrong” appeared when users tried to search for Swift’s name on the social media site that was once known as Twitter on Sunday afternoon. Try loading again.
In a statement, Joe Benarroch, head of business operations at X, stated, “This is a temporary action and done with an abundance of caution as we prioritize safety on this issue.”
Swift broke records on her globe tour, became the most streamed musician globally, and was awarded Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year” in 2023.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, described the phony photos as “alarming” on Friday and asserted that social media platforms had an obligation to stop the propagation of false information.
During a press conference, Jean-Pierre stated that women are disproportionately affected by the lack of enforcement against fraudulent images, which might be produced by artificial intelligence (AI).
According to a New York Times article, Swift’s X account was terminated after one of her images was seen 47 million times.
Following his 2022 acquisition of Twitter, entrepreneur Elon Musk has been under fire for both his own divisive posts and his attempts to change the platform’s content control guidelines. A lot of platform marketers have reduced their expenditure out of concern that their ads might run alongside offensive content.
X has stated that “healthy” posts account for the vast majority of content views. A new policy known as “freedom of speech, not reach” has been announced by Musk and Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X, which limits the distribution of some posts but does not remove them.
The search limitations are in place ahead of the Kansas City Chiefs vs. Baltimore Ravens NFL playoff game, which Swift, who is dating Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, is anticipated to attend at 3 p.m. EST.
Swift’s emotions are frequently shown during Chiefs game broadcasts.