Taylor Swift's name remains unsearchable on X after sexually explicit AI-generated images of the pop star went viral on the platform formerly known as Twitter.
President Joe Biden's administration has spoken out in support of the pop star as reports circulate about their desire to glean an endorsement from her ahead of the 2024 election.
'It is alarming,' White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said of the situation.
"This is a temporary action and done with an abundance of caution as we prioritize safety on this issue," Joe Benarroch, X's head of business operations, told TIME of the blocked searches.
The platform's safety account said it has a "zero-tolerance" policy for non consensual nudity and was in the process of taking all the deepfakes down in a post on Friday, Jan. 26.
But millions of users still managed to view the images before searches were blocked. This led to a new push to regulate AI technology in some corners of the federal government.
"It is alarming," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Friday.
"While social media companies make their own independent decisions about content management, we believe they have an important role to play in enforcing their own rules to prevent the spread of misinformation and non-consensual intimate imagery of real people."
The Biden administration's strong support for Swift through this ordeal may serve more than one purpose.
As former President Donald Trump continues to dominate the Republican primary, the White House is making an effort to gain celebrity endorsements ahead of the election in November.
President Joe Biden hopes Swift will sign on to the effort and help share information about his campaign with her hundreds of millions of social media followers, The New York Times reported.
The White House's desire to have her on board was so well publicized that the administration had to discourage applicants for a social media position from writing about their Swift strategy. Biden's team apparently already has enough suggestions.
It's not clear if the pop star has any intention of making a presidential endorsement.
The fabricated images of Swift began spreading after U.S. Rep. Joe Morelle, a Democrat from New York, introduced the Preventing Deepfakes of Intimate Images Act last year. The bill has not advanced, but Morelle hopes the pop star's misfortune will lead other politicians to act.
"The deepfake images made of Taylor Swift are abhorrent," she said in a tweet on Sunday, Jan. 28. "And deepfakes don't just happen to celebrities – they're happening to women and girls everywhere, every day. We need to put a stop to this by passing my legislation, the Preventing Deepfakes of Intimate Images Act."
Swift will remain in the headlines regardless, as her NFL star boyfriend Travis Kelce is scheduled to play in the Super Bowl next month.
It's not clear if Swift has any intentions of making a presidential endorsement, but she'll continue to dominate headlines in the coming weeks regardless.
The pop star's boyfriend Travis Kelce will appear in the Super Bowl on Sunday, Feb. 11 after he and the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Baltimore Ravens over the weekend. The couple celebrated with an on-field kiss before they linked up with the rest of the Kelce family.
Swift has become a prime focus of NFL broadcasts as she's cheered on her boyfriend from the stands this season.
Eminem also made headlines over the weekend after he was spotted flipping off San Francisco 49ers fans as the team beat his hometown Detroit Lions in the NFC Divisional Championship.
