- Swifties are furious with Elon Musk's X after AI-generated explicit images of the singer went viral.
- One image remained up for 17 hours and attracted more than 45 million views, according to The Verge.
- Musk has slashed X's content moderation teams since taking over the site in 2022.
Elon Musk might be about to face the wrath of the Swifties.
Fans of Taylor Swift are expressing their fury on the billionaire's social media platform X after graphic AI-generated images of the pop superstar went viral on the site.
One post, which was uploaded by a user who had paid for X's blue check, attracted more than 45 million views and 24,000 reposts before it was finally taken down 17 hours later, according to The Verge.
Swift fans are predictably angry, and have taken to flooding the hashtags used to spread the images with videos of the singer performing and calls to get "protect Taylor Swift" trending on the site.
X seemed to acknowledge the spread of the graphic images in a post from the company's "Safety" account early on Friday, saying it was working to remove the images and "closely monitoring" the situation.
"Posting Non-Consensual Nudity (NCN) images is strictly prohibited on X and we have a zero-tolerance policy towards such content. Our teams are actively removing all identified images and taking appropriate actions against the accounts responsible for posting them," the post read.
Despite this, some images still appear to be circulating on the site. A report from 404 Media found that the pictures were migrating to X from a channel on the messaging app Telegram dedicated to using AI to create abusive images of women.
Since Musk took over the site formerly known as Twitter in 2022, he has largely gutted the platform's content moderation team, raising fears that X lacks the capacity to deal with rapidly spreading disinformation or explicit material.
Users on the site have complained that highly graphic content has circulated freely on the site, including videos of gang executions and links to apps that create non-consensual nude images of women by "undressing" them with AI.
The rising availability of AI image generators has fueled concerns that they could be used to create "deepfake" naked images of women.
A report from a UK charity last year found that some children were using the technology in British schools to create indecent images of fellow students, and a case in Spain sparked national outrage after fake, AI-generated explicit images of around 20 teenage schoolgirls began spreading on social media.
X did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.