Taylor Swift has reportedly been the victim of a coordinated online attack attempting to smear her as a Nazi sympathiser, a new study has found.
A new study titled ‘Taylor Swift: Anatomy of a Narrative’ describes a pattern of posts peddling “inauthentic narratives” from online accounts injecting themselves into organic discourse. The study provides troubling insight into how conversations around public figures can be warped by accounts acting in bad faith.
Who was targeting Taylor Swift?
The study shared by behavioral intelligence company GUDEA analyzed 24,679 posts from 18,213 users shared across 14 platforms. These posts highlighted a significant and inflated number of highly inflammatory posts shared by a particular small subset of users.
According to the study, just 3.77% of users actively started and peddled conspiracy theories and political accusations against the singer. These included claims that her album The Life of a Showgirl contained Nazi symbolism, and that she was a part of the MAGA movement and a Donald Trump supporter. Despite the small number of users, they accounted for 28% of the conversational volume, suggesting a coordinated campaign to popularize these conspiracy theories.
The conspiracies leveled against Swift were directed from seemingly left-wing social accounts, and they weren’t just limited to fringe platforms. These users were sparking high-volume conversations by accusing Swift of being a Nazi, which was then leading to a more significant contribution to this narrative due to people defending the star.
How did the Taylor Swift Nazi smear campaign start?
The study noted that the “Taylor Swift is a Nazi” smear campaign began on fringe platform before making the jump to X (Twitter).
GUDEA noted that between October 4-5, the days after The Life of a Showgirl’s release, conversation around Taylor Swift was expectedly related to the album. However, on October 6-7, it observed an “inauthentic narrative injection.” This saw “symbol reinterpretation posts and ideological framing emerge,” as accounts began implying that Swift was using Nazi symbolism in her music and related media.
Between October 8-12, this discourse ramped up significantly. As these inauthentic accounts continued to spread their conspiracies, real users and fans of Swift began either defending her, mocking the accusations, or generally talking about the allegations. This meant that the inauthentic narrative grew, and had not extended beyond the accounts attempting to start the controversy.
How were Kanye West and Blake Lively involved?
(Image: Gotham / Contributor / Getty Images)
Kanye West became a part of this discourse as users began making a comparison to the rapper’s antisemitic remarks and the new discourse around Swift. The researches noted that this demonstrates “how a strategically seeded falsehood can convert into widespread authentic discourse, reshaping public perception even when most users do not believe the originating claim.”
Additionally, researchers found a significant overlap between users pushing the “Nazi” narrative around Swift, and a separate “astroturf” campaign against Blake Lively. The actress is currently involved in a civil case against her It Ends With Us co-star Justin Baldoni, with Lively alleging that Baldoni has orchestrated a “smear campaign” against her to retaliate against her issuing sexual harassment complaints on set. Baldoni has denied the claims and has filed a defamation and extortion lawsuit against Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds.
According to the study, there were “2,395 overlapping accounts active in both the Taylor Swift dataset and the Blake Lively astroturf dataset.” The researchers suggested that this indications a network of accounts who are able to escalate or reframe narratives around celebrities.
What does this mean for Taylor Swift and other celebrities?
The study is yet further evidence that online discourse is effectively being reshaped by inauthentic accounts looking to alter the narrative around popular figures. While it’s not possible to determine where the “Taylor Swift is a Nazi” narrative began, the study indicates that it is the result of a concerted effort to create a conspiracy theory around the singer, with accounts pretending to be left-wing drumming up false concern around the singer’s beliefs.
