Taylor Swift’s sudden fake media surge—Biden endorsements, anti-Trump memes—mirrors the 2016 "controlled opposition" playbook, where Russian-linked BLM accounts timed protests with right-wing backlash. Though Swift supports reproductive rights and LGBT causes, her refusal to endorse candidates makes these claims suspect, forcing fans into credibility traps. Confirmation bias fuels viral lies, eroding trust in media and enabling manipulation of public perception by propagandists. [Automatically generated summary]
Just yesterday, Kansas City Chiefs beat the Baltimore Ravens to make it to the Super Bowl.
And due to our media having a biased relationship toward the interesting story ahead of the relevant story, there are a lot of Taylor Swift memes.
We've been seeing false content about Swift for several months now, but almost all of that has been negative portrayals of her.
It's from people who dislike Swift and her presence as a potential disruption to certain political goals.
But we're now seeing a wave of fake media about Swift that clearly and unequivocally shows her supporting every cause on the left, as well as President Biden for re-election.
This is not good news.
As far as I know, and I've been watching for this specifically for some time, Taylor Swift has not voiced support for any candidate in the current election cycle.
She has supported women's reproductive rights and support for people in the LGBT community, but not any particular politician.
She tweeted a message to encourage people to get registered to vote, but that alone is not a sign of any party affiliation, unless you think that not encouraging people to vote is part of a particular party's platform, but I digress.
She has been very careful with her messaging and with what pictures and media she allows to make it to the public.
So why is there very suddenly a large number of fake pictures of her supporting the Democratic Party and left-leaning talking points?
It could be the work of some overenthusiastic fans who are excited about the idea that she might tip the scales in the coming U.S. election.
Maybe, but I'm not convinced.
Presumably, those same fans were fans of hers last week, and this ramp up of fake content has happened almost overnight.
Maybe it's a naturally occurring phenomenon on the internet.
You know, the way anything at all could go viral.
But again, I don't think so.
This isn't a single meme or photo that's going viral.
There are a very large number, and they support a wide variety of mostly leftist talking points, as well as individual ones that specifically support Biden and oppose Trump.
That doesn't fit the pattern of a naturally occurring internet phenomenon.
It does fit the pattern of a specific form of disinformation campaign that has been seen online over the past eight years or so, one in which a coordinated effort pumps out content that both supports and opposes a specific issue.
This was done during the 2016 U.S. election between Trump and Clinton.
In the metadata analysis surrounding that election, we found Black Lives Matter Facebook accounts that were being administered from Russia and coordinating protests at dates and times coinciding with right-leaning counter-protests.
This was done to maximize the chances for chaos, violence, and political polarization.
This is the tactic of controlled opposition.
Support both sides because it doesn't really matter which side wins as long as the conflict is as bloody as possible.
It's a particular specialty of Russian disinformation, but it wouldn't surprise me to find other disinformation organizations trying it.
It can be very effective with minimal effort.
By pumping out a swath of content that shows Taylor Swift's ties to left-leaning causes, the coordinated effort behind this can accomplish several things at once.
First, they can turn up or turn down the volume on the content at will.
Second, Swift is attempting to fight back against fake portrayals of her image as we speak.
By creating a large number of fake images about things she presumably supports, she's forced to fight against all of those as well.
This gives some of the reality impaired a chance to convince themselves that she doesn't really support those causes.
Third, it compromises her fan base as they eagerly dive into, share, and retweet all of those images that agree with their biases.
That's right.
Our old friend confirmation bias is being used against Swift's fan base.
It works against them as surely as it works against Trump's fans.
They are only human, after all.
And as those fans eagerly spread those fake images around the internet, this turns the Swift mob, an already incredibly eager bunch, into unwitting dupes.
How can they ever push back against the negative fake media about Swift when they eagerly embrace the positive stuff?
Doesn't that just make them all hypocrites?
This creates a situation where Swift fans need to decide whether they want to put those memes aside or use them to dunk on the other side.
And the other side has already been using fake images to try to dunk on both them and Swift for a long time now.
I've already seen the eager dunking by Swift fans.
We can only hope it's temporary.
And even if we could convince all those Swift fans to stop and think about what's happening, it's still going to be incredibly difficult.
If Swift does decide to support a candidate and allow images of that sport to go public, then the opposite side will just say that they're as fake as they were at this moment when they're all fake.
It gives the other side an out, a justification to not believe anything being actively shown to them.
This is the way that all disinformation is incredibly pernicious and ultimately harmful for the human effort of effective decision making.
It waters down the effectiveness of reality in general.
We cannot allow this to continue or we will be selling our decisions to those who create fake content.
Fake media that supports your bias is not good or useful for anyone in our society.