Can Taylor Swift Sue Donald Trump Over AI-Generated False Endorsement?
Written by djfrosty on August 19, 2024
After Donald Trump posted AI-generated images to social media that falsely suggested Taylor Swift had endorsed him, can the superstar take legal action against the Republican presidential nominee? We asked the experts.
Posted on Sunday (Aug. 18) to Trump’s account on his own Truth Social platform, several of the photos showed women in t-shirts with the slogan “Swifties for Trump” emblazoned on the front. Some of those shots appeared to have been generated by AI, including several originally posted by a satire website.
But the most prominent image showed Swift herself, dressed up as Uncle Sam in the style of a World War II-era recruiting poster, bearing a clear message: “Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump.” At the top of the post, Trump himself responded to the apparent endorsement: “I accept!”
Trending on Billboard
The images quickly sparked outrage among fans of the superstar singer, who has long been an outspoken critic of the 45th president. Though she has not yet endorsed a candidate in 2024, Swift supported Joe Biden and running mate Kamala Harris in 2020 — and she blasted Trump for “stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism” and urged her legions of fans to vote him out of office.
As news of Trump’s post spread across the internet, many Swifties quickly wondered the same thing: Could Taylor take legal action against the former president?
According to Jessica Silbey, a professor at Boston University School of Law and an expert in intellectual property and constitutional law, Trump’s fake endorsement post likely violates Swift’s right of publicity — the legal power to control how your name, image and likeness are used by others.
“Everyone enjoys a right of publicity,” says Silbey, who has written extensively about the internet. “This kind of use — being made to say and seen as believing things you don’t — is at the core of the right.”
As the explosive growth of artificial intelligence tools has made it easier to convincingly mimic real people, lawmakers have scrambled to empower individuals like Swift to better protect their right of publicity. The federal NO FAKES Act, currently under debate in Congress, would make it illegal to publish a “digital replica” of someone’s likeness without their consent, including their voice or their image.
Trump’s post — featuring a photorealistic, AI-generated replica of Swift’s image without her consent — would almost certainly violate that new federal law. But even without the NO FAKES Act, states across the country already protect the right of publicity and would likely give Swift grounds to sue Trump or his campaign. Silbey says Swift might also explore suing him for defamation, claiming the false presidential endorsement harmed her reputation.
Whether the star should do so is a different question. Such litigation would be long and costly and Trump has potential defense strategies, including pinning the blame on the people who originally created the images, or arguing that his posts were free speech shielded by the First Amendment. And even if Taylor won, it’s hard to say whether it would be worth the effort to pull down one post.
“I’m skeptical the juice would be worth the squeeze,” says Woodrow Hartzog, another professor at Boston University School of Law.
Rather than responding with cease-and-desist letters or a lawsuit, Swift might decide that she’s better off fighting Trump’s fake endorsement with a legitimate endorsement of her own, broadcast across social media to her millions of die-hard fans. That’s the kind of remedy that no court can issue — and one that will likely hurt Trump far more than any judge could.
“I think Swift probably has more effective political rather than legal recourse here,” Hartzog said.