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X has confirmed that it is blocking users from searching for Taylor Swift’s name after pornographic deepfakes of the artist began circulating on the platform this week. Visitors to the site began noticing on Saturday that some searches containing Swift’s name were only returning an error message. In a statement to Wall Street Journal On Saturday night, Joe Benarroch, head of trading operations at X, said: “This is a temporary action and is being done out of an abundance of caution as we prioritize safety on this issue.” This step comes days after the issue was first known.
X’s handling of the issue from the beginning has drawn criticism for being slow to stop the spread of sexually explicit and non-consensual images. After the images went viral on Wednesday, Swift’s fans took action to limit their visibility and delete them, en masse reporting the accounts that shared the images and flooding hashtags related to the singer with positive content. NBC News reported earlier this week. Many of the offending accounts were subsequently suspended, but not before in some cases they were viewed millions of times. The edge reported Thursday that one post was viewed more than 45 million times.
In a statement posted on its platform that same day, X said: “Posting non-consensual nudity (NCN) is strictly prohibited on Our teams are actively removing all identified images and taking appropriate action against the accounts responsible for posting them. We are closely monitoring the situation to ensure that any further violations are addressed immediately and the content is removed. “We are committed to maintaining a safe and respectful environment for all users.”
But it was still possible to find the images days later. 404Media traced the likely origin of the images to a Telegram group known for creating AI-generated non-consensual images of women using free tools like Microsoft Designer. In an interview with NBC News Lester Holt On Friday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the issue highlights what the company’s responsibility is and “all the barriers we need to put around the technology for more safe content to be produced.” He went on to say that “there is a lot to do there and a lot to do there,” but also noted that the company needs to “act quickly.”