When Taylor Swift released The Life of a Showgirl in October, she was quickly swept into a disturbing wave of accusations that she was endorsing 'tradwife' ideals and the MAGA movement.
But new research suggests much of the outrage was artificially amplified by bots and coordinated accounts intent on sabotaging her reputation.
The claims spiraled from alleging her lyrics pushed conservative propaganda to falsely insisting that merchandise, including a lightning-bolt Opalite necklace, used 'Nazi imagery.'
Critics argued that, in her song titled Wi$h Li$t, Swift's fantasy of settling down with fiancé Travis Kelce, having children and raising a family read like coded support of 'Aryan-style' values.
The line 'I just want you / Have a couple kids / Got the whole block looking like you' -matched with imagery of a blonde, blue-eyed ideal - was seized upon as evidence by some that Swift was promoting a racially charged vision of the so-called 'American dream.'
But data from the behavioral-intelligence platform, GUDEA, available on their website, shows a different story.
GUDEA's report revealed from October 4 (the day after the album release) through October 18, GUDEA studied over 24,679 posts and 18,213 users across 14 platforms, including X, Reddit and TikTok.
The AI technology company found that only 3.77 percent of accounts drove 28 percent of the total online conversation about Swift during that period and that the vast majority of those posts centered on conspiratorial...
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