X users were shocked to find explicit artificial intelligence (AI) generated images of pop star Taylor Swift circulating unabated on the platform. The search of Taylor Swift on the gif bar popped up several morphed photos of the pop star, leading to outrage against the Elon Musk owned social media company.
Many X users have been reporting accounts that have been posting AI generated pornography only to be told that these accounts “have not broken safety policies.” X is facing severe backlash for creating a conducive environment for AI generated pornography to be widely consumed without facing threats of being taken down or legal repercussions.
Fact checker and journalist Karen Rebelo shared a screenshot of a message she received from X after she reported an account named hornyconfes1 which has been posting AI generated pornography. The message from X that Karen had received asked the user to simply block the account so that they cannot see or interact with posts from the page she had reported. The message also listed actions that would be in violation of X’s community guidelines and AI generated pornography did not feature in it. But later Karen shared a screenshot which said that X found the post and the account to be in violation of their safety guidelines and that it was indulging in abusive behaviour.
After explicit images of Taylor Swift were shared on X, reports said that the singer was deliberating legal action against the deepfake pornography site that hosted the explicit images. Shortly after, politicians in the USA made calls for regulation of AI and laws around the same.
X also issued a statement saying that it was actively removing the images and taking appropriate action against accounts that were spreading them. According to BBC, the statement also added, “We're closely monitoring the situation to ensure that any further violations are immediately addressed, and the content is removed." The platform has also disabled searches for ‘Taylor Swift’, ‘Taylor Swift AI’, and ‘Taylor AI’.