Social-media company X has lifted the ban on searches for Taylor Swift, after blocking users from searching for her following the spread of fake sexually-explicit images of the pop singer on the social media site last week.
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The search was reactivated on Monday and the social media platform "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, said in a statement.
Searches for Swift's name on Sunday on X yielded the error message, "Something went wrong. Try reloading."
X had called the measure a temporary action done with "abundance of caution".
One image of Swift, who was named Time Magazine's Person Of The Year in 2023, shared on X was viewed 47 million times before the account was suspended, according to a New York Times report.
The ban on searches came after White House weighed in on Friday, calling the fake images "alarming" and highlighting that social media companies have a responsibility to prevent the spread of such misinformation.
Since billionaire Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, he has faced criticism for his own controversial posts, prompting many advertisers on the platform to pull back spending out of fear of being associated with harmful content.
Unlike more conventional doctored images that have troubled celebrities in the past, the Swift images appear to have been created using an artificial intelligence image-generator that can instantly create new images from a written prompt.
After the images began spreading online, the singer's devoted fanbase of "Swifties" quickly mobilised, launching a counteroffensive on X and a #ProtectTaylorSwift hashtag to flood it with more positive images of the pop star. Some said they were reporting accounts that were sharing the deepfakes.
with AP
Australian Associated Press
