• Source:JND
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Taylor Swift AI Pictures: Elon Musk's platform X (formerly Twitter) is now lifting the ban on searches for Taylor Swift after a brief ban amid the rise of fake sexual AI-generated images on the platform. The ban was lifted on Monday, and these searches have been reactivated, Joe Benarroch, X's head of business operations, said. Reuters reported that the microblogging platform blocked searches for the celebrity last week after these AI images went viral.

While the searches have been reactivated, X "will continue to be vigilant for any attempt to spread this content and will remove it if we find it," Benarroch added. A quick search on Sunday revealed that an error message ('Something went wrong. Try reloading.') was displayed once a user searched for "Taylor Swift" or "Taylor Swift AI". While the second keyword was still blocked, the first one rendered results. X said it was a temporary action implemented with "abundance of caution."

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However, the platform was still not on par with blocking similar searches. The Verge reported that switching keywords or minor walkarounds rendered results concerning the artist during the ban. However, none of them were visibly explicit, the outlet added. For the unversed, one of the explicit images grabbed over 45 million views before being removed after about 17 hours.

The ban came on the heels of the White House's statement that the fake images are particularly "alarming" and underlined the responsibilities of social media firms to curb the spread of such content. "This is very alarming. And so, we're going to do what we can to deal with this issue," said Karine Jean-Pierre, Press Secretary of the White House.

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Social media companies have a role in "enforcing their own rules to prevent the spread of misinformation and non-consensual, intimate imagery of real people," Jean-Pierre added. Elon Musk has been in the news after the leadership overhaul of the firm in 2022 and introducing changes such as layoffs across core teams and his controversial posts.