Coordinated online attack sought to suggest Taylor Swift promoted Nazi ideas, research finds

"Analysis has found that a coordinated online attack sought to align Taylor Swift and her latest album, The Life of a Showgirl, with Nazi and rightwing imagery and values, from accounts feigning leftist critique and designed to encourage outrage. The AI-driven behavioural intelligence platform Gudea produced a report examining more than 24,000 posts and 18,000 accounts across 14 social media platforms between 4 October, the day of the album's release, and 18 October."

"These posts accused Swift of sowing dogwhistle references in her lyrics and alleged that a lightning bolt-style necklace from her merchandise line a reference to the album track Opalite resembled SS insignia. The report concluded that 3.77% of accounts drove 28% of discussion of Swift in the period, chiefly conspiracy theories that also made allegations about her supposed ties to the Maga movement and criticisms framing her engagement to American football player Travis Kelce as trad or conservative."

"In a spike that took place between 6 and 7 October, 35% of posts in the dataset came from bot-like accounts. Gudea said that while they didn't uncover the identity of those responsible, they found a significant user overlap between accounts pushing the Swift Nazi' narrative and those active in a separate astroturf campaign attacking Blake Lively, the actor involved in an ongoing sexual harassment lawsuit against actor and director Justin Baldoni and a once close friend of Swift's."

An AI-driven behavioural intelligence platform examined more than 24,000 posts and 18,000 accounts across 14 social media platforms between 4 and 18 October following the album release. Online posts accused Taylor Swift of embedding dogwhistle references in lyrics and claimed a lightning bolt-style necklace linked to the Opalite track resembled SS insignia. A small subset of accounts (3.77%) generated 28% of the discussion, and a spike between 6 and 7 October showed 35% bot-like activity. Significant user overlap linked accounts promoting the Swift 'Nazi' narrative to an astroturf campaign attacking Blake Lively, revealing a cross-event amplification network that carried fringe falsehoods from 4chan into mainstream platforms and into public and algorithmic circulation.

Read at www.theguardian.com