2024-08-24 12:15:47
Donald Trump has shared doctored images on social media claiming support for Taylor Swift and her fans’ election campaign, in an apparent effort to harness the pop singer’s influence in the US election.
Swift has not publicly endorsed any candidate for the Nov. 5 election. In 2020, she backed President Joe Biden and criticized Trump.
On Sunday, Trump shared screenshots of posts with manipulated images suggesting the pop star and her fans, known as Swifties, support him. Some of these images appear to be generated by artificial intelligence (AI), according to one expert.
“I do!” the former Republican president wrote in a message on the Truth Social network that shows a poster of Swift asking her fans to vote for him.
The poster was “generated by AI or simply manipulated,” Hany Farid, an expert at the University of California, Berkeley, told AFP.
The post includes photos of women wearing T-shirts with the slogan “Swifties for Trump” which Farid says bear “revealing signs of having been generated by AI.”
It appears to be a combination of real and fake images because at least one photo is of a woman wearing such a shirt, Farid concludes.
Swift has not publicly reacted.
Meanwhile, Trump shared a video on Truth Social of a person who claims that the singer’s fans seem to be leaning towards the Republican.
Swift’s growing popularity and influence have Democrats and Republicans alike seeking her support, but she remains reticent to voice her support for the moment.
Her power was on display when she encouraged her fans to register to vote in 2023, directing them to the nonpartisan nonprofit Vote.org.
The impact was immediate: the institution said it had registered more than 35,000 new registrations after the message, i.e. 23% more than the previous year and the highest figure since 2020.
For this reason, the singer has become a target for political misinformation and right-wing conspiracy theories.
Her reserve led many critics to speculate that Swift was keeping her Republican status a secret. But in 2018, she broke her silence by endorsing radical Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s Democratic opponent in Tennessee.
Since then, the singer has spoken out in favor of abortion rights and defended the LGBTQ+ community.
In recent weeks, there has also been speculation on social media that Swift might support Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in the November election.
Many of her fans have formed a group called “Swifties for Kamala.”
