Elon Musk's X blocks searches for Taylor Swift on its platform; here's why

X returned 'Oops, something went wrong' for searches like 'Taylor Swift' and 'Taylor Swift AI'

Elon Musk-owned social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, has blocked searches for Taylor Swift after explicit images of the pop star created using artificial intelligence surfaced on the platform last week.

As verified by Business Standard, X returned "Oops, something went wrong" for "Taylor Swift" and "Taylor Swift AI". However, searches like "Taylor Swift Photos" and "Taylor Swift singer" still get results. Taylor is yet to publicly comment on the incident.

This comes at a time when social media platforms, as well as governments, are scrambling to tackle the problem of "deepfakes", realistic images or videos made using AI to show celebrities in compromising or misleading situations.

According to the "2023 State of Deepfakes Report" by "Home Security Heroes", a US-based web security services company, deepfake videos have increased five-fold since 2019.

In India, deepfakes of actor Rashmika Mandanna went viral on the internet last year, following which a 23-year-old B-Tech graduate from Andhra Pradesh was arrested for making them. Later, a deepfake video of former cricketer Sachin Tendulkar also surfaced where he was promoting a gaming app. An FIR was filed against the app.  

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Several other film stars, such as Alia Bhatt, Kajol, Aishwarya Rai and Katrina Kaif, have also been targeted with deepfake videos.

Last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also flagged the use of AI for creating deepfakes, saying this can precipitate a big crisis. He urged the media to spread awareness about its misuse and impact.

Earlier this month, Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that the rules for the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act will be out by the end of the month. These will curb deepfakes over social media platforms.

The ministry had held meetings with several platforms in December to discuss the issue of rising deepfakes and misinformation. 

On Monday, Chandrasekhar told the Financial Times (FT) in an interview that the social media companies will be "held accountable" for AI-generated deepfakes posted on their platforms

"We are the world's largest democracy [and] we are obviously deeply concerned about the impact of cross-border actors using disinformation, using misinformation, using deepfakes to cause problems in our democracy," Chandrasekhar said, adding that the country is framing tech regulations that are "between the US and Europe" in terms of rights of the companies.