Taylor Swift Searches Blocked by X Amid Circulation of Deepfakes
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded after social media platform X, formerly Twitter, blocked searches of Taylor Swift’s name to crack down on the proliferation of sexually explicit deepfakes of the pop star.
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00:00 There were fake sexually explicit images of Taylor Swift all over social media this week,
00:05 likely generated by AI.
00:07 How concerned is the White House about the misuse of this kind of technology?
00:12 And does the White House want to see Congress move forward on legislation that would make
00:15 sharing, posting images like that, a federal crime?
00:19 So I'm glad you asked that question because it is alarming.
00:22 We are alarmed by the reports of the circulation of images that you just laid out, false images
00:29 to be more exact, and it is alarming.
00:31 So while social media companies make their own independent decisions about content management,
00:36 we believe they have an important role to play in enforcing their own rules to prevent
00:41 the spread of misinformation and non-consensual intimate imagery of real people.
00:47 Sadly, sadly though, too often, we know that lax enforcement disproportionately impacts
00:52 women and they also impact girls, sadly, who are the overwhelming targets, the overwhelming
00:58 targets of online harassment and also abuse.
01:01 So the President is committed, as you know, to ensuring we reduce the risk of generative
01:06 AI producing images like through his latest executive order that we announced just in
01:12 the fall of last year.
01:15 So this problem is not new and it's one that the Biden-Harris administration has been prioritizing
01:20 since day one.
01:21 We have taken this very seriously.
01:23 Again, this is alarming to us.
01:25 As you know, he launched a task force to address online harassment and abuse and he did that
01:30 just this fall.
01:31 The Department of Justice launched the first national 24/7 helpline for survivors of image-based
01:36 sexual abuse.
01:38 And so our commitment and that we will continue to do and continue to take action and make
01:43 sure that we continue to work on this.
01:46 And again, this is very alarming and so we're going to do what we can to deal with this
01:51 issue.
01:52 Should there be legislation, too, moving forward?
01:54 Yeah, there should be legislation, obviously, to deal with this issue.
01:57 But as I just stated, the President has taken action, whether it is a task force, whether
02:01 it's the Department of Justice, doing what it can with the 24/7 online assistance.
02:08 And so we're going to continue to do what we can from here.
02:11 Of course, Congress should take legislative action.
02:14 That's how you deal with some of these issues, obviously.
02:17 But it is alarming to us and we're going to continue to do what we can from the federal
02:22 government.