When the Kansas City Chiefs romp to a Super Bowl victory on February 11, tight end Travis Kelce will bring his superstar girlfriend onto the field, drop to one knee, and propose. Their engagement will unleash a media maelstrom and create the conditions for Taylor Swift’s hugely significant endorsement of …
Read More »If Taylor Swift Can’t Defeat Deepfake Porn, No One Can
If anyone can rally up a base, it’s Taylor Swift. When sexually explicit, likely AI-generated, fake images of Swift circulated on social media this week, it galvanized her fans. Swifties found phrases and hashtags related to the images and flooded them with videos and photos of Swift performing. “Protect Taylor …
Read More »Meet Taylor Swift’s Pro-Russia Doppelgänger
Does your favorite movie star or pop singer really love the Kremlin? Though the ads in your Facebook feed may lead you to believe such a thing, it’s just not true. In recent months, a major disinformation campaign has run rampant on Meta and X (aka Facebook and Twitter). The …
Read More »Taylor Swift, QAnon, and the Political Weaponization of Fandom
Taylor Swift remains inescapable. Tales of her reign are legion, as are her fans. Next to Beyoncé, her power and influence have reached heights so unbridled it’s almost unfathomable. Her Eras Tour made nearly a billion dollars in 2023, and the concert film of that tour has brought in nearly …
Read More »Fake Taylor Swift Quotes Are Being Used to Spread Anti-Ukraine Propaganda
“Now, how long will this take? The Ukrainians behave like charlatans and we continue to pay,” reads a quote in French next to a picture of Taylor Swift on what looks like a promotional poster for an upcoming tour. “That is not right.” “Every time the Ukrainians get money, everything …
Read More »Johnny Cash's Taylor Swift Cover Predicts the Boring Future of AI Music
When Texas-based copywriter Dustin Ballard released a cover of Aqua’s 1997 Europop hit “Barbie Girl” this summer using an AI-generated version of Johnny Cash’s voice, he was surprised by its reception. “I actually expected more of a backlash,” he says. Earlier this fall, when he followed up with AI Johnny …
Read More »Taylor Swift, Star Wars, 'Stranger Things,' and Deadpool Have One Man in Common
When I meet Shawn Levy on an August day in Brooklyn, I expect him to be sweating. Why? For one reason, it’s sticky-humid outside, and I’m dripping like a swamp creature. The other is that the big blockbuster Levy has been filming these past few months, Deadpool 3, might not …
Read More »The Truth About the Taylor Swift, Jets Game, Google Search Conspiracy Theory
Taylor Swift, as WIRED has reported in the past, rules the internet. She’s one of the most Googled celebrities in the world. Her search engine optimization, or SEO, in industry parlance, is on fire. She’s a Tumblr kid turned titan of industry (her Eras Tour, after it broke Ticketmaster, made …
Read More »The 7 Best Conspiracies About Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce
First thing’s first: Misinformation and disinformation are bad. False tweets that go viral, government conspiracy theories, lies about vaccines—these are all huge problems online, and they’re poised to get worse thanks to generative AI. There are a few exceptions, though. The best of these came to light over the weekend …
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