US
Donald Trump posts fake images of Taylor Swift endorsement
Donald Trump appears to have shared a series of fake images on his social media site, suggesting Taylor Swift and some of her fans are endorsing him for the upcoming election.
The pictures posted by the former Republican president on Truth Social included a mock poster of Swift dressed in red, white and blue, with a caption that said: “Taylor Swift Wants You To Vote For Donald Trump.”
“I accept!” Mr Trump wrote.
Swift has not publicly endorsed a candidate in the 2024 race but previously supported Joe Biden and has criticised Mr Trump in the past.
Donald Trump shared the images on Truth Social, his own social media platform
The images also included fans wearing “Swifties for Trump” T-shirts.
While two of the images feature a real woman who supports Mr Trump, most of the women depicted aren’t real, Sky News’ US partner NBC News reports. At least 15 are representations of people created using artificial intelligence.
The images he shared had originally been posted on X (formerly Twitter) by pro-Trump accounts. One of those accounts also posted multiple guides to using generative AI tools on its Substack blog, according to NBC News.
“There is no Swifties For Trump movement – but there should be,” acknowledged one of the accounts that Trump reposted on Truth Social, in a caption on the AI-generated images.
However, Mr Trump’s campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told the Reuters news agency that the “Swifties for Trump is a massive movement that grows bigger every single day”, when asked for comment about the fake Swift image.
Swift has been performing her final Eras shows of the European leg of her tour, which is due to finish at Wembley Stadium tonight.
Kamala Harris has taken over as the Democratic candidate from president Joe Biden. Pic: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque
Some of Swift’s fans previously mobilised to support Kamala Harris’s campaign. The vice president is set to be formally nominated as the 2024 Democratic candidate at the party’s national convention in Chicago this week.
Shortly after Mr Biden announced he was not running for re-election in July, a group called “Swifties for Kamala” launched on social media. It has more than 61,000 followers on X and is not affiliated with the singer or Harris.
“We do not represent every Swiftie, but I think there is a reason we don’t need AI to show our support for Kamala,” the organisation’s co-founder, Irene Kim, told NBC News in a statement.
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AI-generated images and videos of Swift have repeatedly gone viral this year, including deepfake sexual pictures on X which broke the platform’s guidelines.
Several Swift fans and watchdog groups said many of the images posted by Mr Trump appeared to be deepfakes generated by artificial intelligence.
Sky News has contacted representatives for Swift for comment.