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The rapid spread online of deepfake pornographic images of Taylor Swift has renewed calls, including from US politicians, to criminalize the practice, in which artificial intelligence is used to synthesize fake but convincing explicit images.
Images of the American pop star have been distributed on social media and have been viewed by millions of people this week. One of the Swift images hosted on X, previously distributed on the Telegram app, was viewed 47 million times before being removed.
X said in a statement: “Our teams are actively removing all identified images and taking appropriate action against the accounts responsible for posting them.”
Yvette D. Clarke, Democratic congresswoman from New York, wrote in X: “What happened to Taylor Swift is nothing new. For years, women have been targets of deepfakes (without) their consent. And (with) advances in AI, creating deepfakes is easier and cheaper. “This is a problem that both sides of the aisle and even Swifties should be able to come together to solve.”
Some individual US states have their own anti-deepfake legislation, but there is growing momentum to change federal law.
In May 2023, Democratic Congressman Joseph Morelle unveiled the proposed Intimate Images Deepfake Prevention Act, which would make it illegal to share deepfake pornography without consent. Morelle said the images and videos “can cause irrevocable emotional, financial and reputational damage and, unfortunately, women are disproportionately affected.”
In a tweet condemning Swift’s images, he described them as “sexual exploitation.” His bill has not yet become law.
Republican Congressman Tom Kean Jr said: “It is clear that artificial intelligence technology is advancing faster than the necessary barriers. “Whether the victim is Taylor Swift or any young person in our country, we must put safeguards in place to combat this alarming trend.” He has co-sponsored Morelle’s bill and introduced his own AI Labeling Act that would require all AI-generated content (including the most innocuous chatbots used in customer service settings, for example) to be labeled as such.
Swift has not spoken publicly about the images. Her American publicist had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.
Convincing deepfake videos or audio have been used to impersonate some high-profile men, particularly politicians such as Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and artists such as Drake and The Weeknd. In October 2023, Tom Hanks told his Instagram followers not to be lured by a fake dentistry ad featuring his image.
But the technology is overwhelmingly aimed at women, and in a sexually exploitative way: a 2019 study by DeepTrace Labs, cited in the proposed US legislation, found that 96% of deepfake video content was non-consensual pornographic material.
The problem has worsened considerably since 2019. Fake pornography, in which photo editing software is used to place a person’s face without their consent onto an existing pornographic image, is a long-standing problem. But a new frontier has been opened thanks to the sophistication of artificial intelligence, which can be used to generate completely new and highly convincing images, even through simple text commands.
High-profile women are particularly at risk. In 2018, Scarlett Johansson spoke out about widespread fake pornography featuring her image: “Unfortunately I have been down this path many, many times. The fact is, trying to protect yourself from the Internet and its depravity is basically a lost cause, for the most part.”
The UK government made non-consensual deepfake pornography illegal in December 2022, in an amendment to the Online Safety Bill that also banned any explicit images taken without someone’s consent, including so-called “top off” photos.
Dominic Raab, then deputy prime minister, said: “We must do more to protect women and girls from people who take or manipulate intimate photographs to harass or humiliate them. “Our changes will give police and prosecutors the powers they need to bring these cowards to justice and protect women and girls from such vile abuse.”