Lewis Pennock
- Celeb Jihad published a collection of AI-generated explicit images of Taylor Swift which have been shared on X and triggered widespread outrage
- The website was started in 2008 and has shared faked photos of hundreds of A list celebrities, along with explicit images leaked from hacked iCloud accounts
- Swift previously threatened legal action against the site in 2011 over a faked nude photo, but Celeb Jihad makes the outrageous claim its content is ‘satire’
The website which shared explicit AI-generated images of Taylor Swift has been posting faked pornographic photos of the singer and other celebrities for years, seemingly with impunity.
Celeb Jihad is believed to be the origin of recent graphic images which depict Swift at a Kansas City Chiefs game. The images, which were created using AI software, were shared by the website on January 15 under a headline titled: ‘Taylor Swift Chiefs Sex Scandal Caught On Camera’.
The images were later posted on X with Celeb Jihad’s watermark, triggering a massive backlash from Swift’s fans and others who likened the pictures to a form of sexual assault.
The scandal is the latest of many involving Celeb Jihad, which was created by its anonymous founder in 2008.
Along with deepfakes – the name given to hyper-realistic fake content – of Swift and other stars, the website has also published droves of leaked explicit photos of other celebrities, including images that were hacked from their cellphones.
Astonishingly, the site claims its content is ‘satire’ and states it is ‘not a pornographic website’.
Swift’s legal team previously issued a warning to Celeb Jihad in 2011 after it published a faked photo which depicted the singer topless. The picture appeared with the caption ‘Taylor Swift Topless Private Pic Leaked?’
At the time, her lawyers threatened to file a trademark-infringement suit and accused it of spreading ‘false pornographic images’ and ‘false news’. The website appears to have published hundreds, and potentially thousands, more faked images of Swift since it was started.
Celeb Jihad was also involved in several massive leaks of private photos hacked from celebrities’ cellphones, including iCloud accounts, in 2017.
The website was one of several which published illicitly-obtained photos of celebrities including Miley Cyrus and Tiger Woods and his former girlfriend Lindsey Vonn. Vonn said the leak was an ‘outrageous and despicable invasion of privacy’.
Several of the celebrities threatened legal action against Celeb Jihad, which removed pictures of some of the stars including Vonn and Woods.
Little is known about the site’s operators, although a Wikipedia entry claims it is headquartered in Los Angeles.
Records show the website was registered on March 18, 2008. It is hosted by GoDaddy Inc., an internet domain registry, according to the records.
Celeb Jihad’s ‘About’ page includes a spoof biography about its ‘founder’, who it says is named Durka Durka Mohammed. Critics have said its fabricated backstory amounts to racism and Islamophobia.
The site also includes a ‘disclaimer’ page and information about the DMCA, which is the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
The disclaimer page claims Celeb Jihad is ‘not a pornographic website’, even though it is dedicated almost entirely to explicit photographs of celebrities.
‘CelebJihad.com is a satirical website containing published rumors, speculation, assumptions, opinions, fiction as well as factual information,’ the website claims.
‘Information on this site may or may not be true and is not meant to be taken as fact. Celeb Jihad’s owner makes no warranty as to the validity of any claims.’
The site also includes various other statements which claim it is satirical and ‘uses invented names in all its stories, except in cases when public figures are being satirized. Any other use of real names is accidental and coincidental.’
The DMCA page states it ‘respects the intellectual property of others’.
Several attempts by celebrities to have their photos removed from the website have relied on copyright law, rather than any law designed to prevent the unauthorized sharing of explicit photographs.
In 2016, lawyers for Harry Potter actress Emma Watson sent a cease and desist letter to Celeb Jihad after it posted photos of her in a see-through top without a bra. The letter stated that Watson owned the copyright and the photographs were later removed.
The latest scandal involving Taylor Swift shows AI-generated depictions of her at a Kansas City Chiefs football game.
Swift has been a regular at Chiefs games over the last six months to support her boyfriend, star player Travis Kelce.
According to an analysis by independent researcher Genevieve Oh that was shared with The Associated Press in December, more than 143,000 new deepfake videos were posted online this year, which surpasses every other year combined.
There are mounting calls for Celeb Jihad to be taken down and for its owners to be criminally investigated.
On Thursday morning, X started suspending accounts that had reshared some of the photos – but others quickly emerged in their place. There are also reposts of the images on Instagram, Reddit and 4Chan.
Swift is yet to comment on the site or the spread of the images but her loyal and distressed fans have led the backlash.
‘How is this not considered sexual assault? I cannot be the only one who is finding this weird and uncomfortable?
‘We are talking about the body/face of a woman being used for something she probably would never allow/feel comfortable. How are there no regulations or laws preventing this?,’ one fan asked.
Nonconsensual deepfake pornography is illegal in Texas, Minnesota, New York, Virginial, Hawaii and Georgia. In Illinois and California, victims can sue the creators of the pornography in court for defamation.
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