‘Taylor Swift Is a Nazi’ Claims Were Spurred by a Coordinated Bot Attack, Study Finds

When Taylor Swift released her twelfth studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl,†in October, the album sparked record streams as well as an onslaught of criticism. While a portion of the online discourse it provoked was centered around whether or not the album was actually good, a parallel wave of attacks accused Swift and the album of promoting ultra-right-wing ideology.

Users across platforms claimed that the song “Wi$h Li$t,†in which Swift sings about her only wish being to settle down, was an implicit endorsement of MAGA values, even though the singer had publicly endorsed Trump’s opponent, former vice President Kamala Harris, in the 2024 election. Some even claimed that a line in the song, in which Swift sings “have a couple kids, got the whole block looking like you†in reference to her fiancé, football player Travis Kelce, had white supremacist connotations.

Accounts also claimed that the lines “I’m not a bad bitch, and this isn’t savage†in the song “Eldest Daughter†and “sleepless in the onyx night, but now, the sky is opalite†from the song “Opalite†were racist digs at Kelce’s ex-girlfriend, who is black.

Other posts even claimed that a necklace merch with lightning bolts on it was actually a Nazi dog-whistle for vaguely resembling “SS.â€

Now, according to new research from behavioral intelligence startup GUDEA, at least a good chunk of these online attacks were spurred by inauthentic social media accounts in what looks to be a coordinated attack on Swift’s reputation.

GUDEA examined thousands of posts from 18,000 accounts across 14 social media platforms made in the first two weeks following the album’s release, to find that the “Taylor Swift is a Nazi†narrative was spurred by accounts that behaved like bots. The inauthentic narrative acted as a catalyst for authentic conversations, like one comparing Swift to self-proclaimed Nazi Kanye West.

Surprisingly, though, it was the Swifties that inadvertently ensured that the attacks reached their intended impact. These false narratives were basically “rage bait†designed to provoke real users and strengthen the narrative’s visibility. So ultimately, it was established accounts and influencers that took the false narrative from the confines of the fringe corners of the internet to the mainstream conversation. Every time a fan interacted with the false claims to refute them, it only fed the narrative for the algorithm.

“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,†the researchers wrote, adding that the pattern is “a hallmark of successful narrative manipulation.â€

It’s not clear who orchestrated the bot attacks or what they could be gaining from this. But the researchers did find significant overlap between the accounts that pushed the narrative and accounts involved in a reputational attack campaign on actress Blake Lively, who is in the middle of a sexual harassment and online smear campaign lawsuit against actor Justin Baldoni.

GUDEA’s head of customer success, Georgia Paul, told Rolling Stone that the culprits could also be nefarious actors asking themselves, “If I can move the fan base for Taylor Swift —an icon who is this political figure, in a way— does that mean I can do it in other places?â€

Ultimately, what the incident highlights is just how scarily close our new digital reality has come to the “dead internet theory.†Bots are flooding all corners of the web, and they are actively shaping our own experience of it.

According to Cloudflare data, roughly 30% of all internet traffic is now bots. GUDEA founder and CEO Keith Presley’s estimate is even higher at 50%.

“The internet is fake,†Presley told Rolling Stone on Tuesday.