While mega pop star Taylor Swift has been all over the headlines in recent months — even more than usual — she hasn't publicly endorsed a candidate for the 2024 White House.
Even with that said, AI deepfakes and their creators appear to be working to try to trick social media users into believing she has shown public support for former President Donald Trump, who polls show is the front-runner to be the GOP nominee for president.
Posts on X show significant engagement with the deepfakes on the platform.
In late January, X restored the searchability for Swift on the social site after blocking searches to try to mitigate a previous problem where fake images, purporting to show Swift nude, were all over accounts and search results.
The Taylor Swift effect and the sudden surge in female NFL fans
A new report found that 64% of Gen Z and millennial women now hold a favorable view of the NFL, the highest figure ever.
This time, the inauthentic altered media appears to be trying to inject some influence into which of the likely nominees running in the 2024 presidential race are favored online, and possibly by Swift fans. With Swift's undeniable influence over pop culture, it poses a real concern in the realm of attempting to control misinformation.
While it's unclear who Swift supports in this election, or if she has favored any of those running for the U.S. government's top office, she did come out publicly in 2020 in support of the Biden-Harris ticket in an interview with V Magazine.
Swift said in the interview in 2020, "I will proudly vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris."
That statement was made more than three years ago, and during a different political climate. Swift then told the magazine she believed it would start the nation's "healing process."
This week Politico drew attention to a new Marquette Law School poll in Wisconsin by reporting that it showed former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley leading President Joe Biden by 15 percentage points among those polled who said they would likely vote.
The poll showed that former President Trump was tied with President Biden. Wisconsin has been seen as a possible electoral tipping point in the upcoming election.
"If you will stay with us in this fight, I'm not going anywhere!" Haley told a crowd in California this week.
Haley, the last remaining major rival to former President Trump, was defeated in Nevada's primary on Tuesday as more voters chose the "none of these candidates" ballot option. On Thursday night, Decision Desk HQ and Scripps News projected former President Trump would win Nevada's Republican caucuses and secure at least 24 of the 26 delegates up for grabs.
