Donald Trump has shared manipulated images on social networks that suggest he has the support of Taylor Swift and her many fans ahead of the US presidential election, AFP reported.
Taylor Swift, whose influence on some young American voters has been closely watched, has not yet given her official endorsement to any of the candidates in the Nov. 5 election.
But in 2020, she supported Joe Biden against President Donald Trump, accusing the Republican of "fanning the flames of white supremacy and racism throughout (his) tenure."
On Sunday, the former Republican president posted doctored images - some of which one expert said were created using artificial intelligence (AI) - suggesting the singer and her fans, known as "Swifties", would support his campaign.
In a post on the platform Truth Social, in which Taylor Swift, dressed as Uncle Sam, asked her fans to vote for Trump, the former president wrote: "I accept!"
The image of the star was "generated by artificial intelligence or simply manipulated in the classic way," Hani Farid, a digital forensics expert at the University of California, Berkeley, told AFP.
The post was accompanied by photos of women wearing "Swifties for Trump" T-shirts, some of which Farid said were "typical" of AI-generated images.
Taylor Swift and her entourage did not immediately react to the post.
Both Republicans and Democrats are trying to capitalize on the singer's massive popularity, but so far she's avoided taking sides.
The singer demonstrated her influence last September when she posted a message on Instagram inviting her tens of millions of followers to visit the Vote.org platform to register to vote.
On that day, the organization counted more than 35,000 new registrations, representing a 23% jump from the same day a year earlier.
Hailing from the rural state of Tennessee, Taylor Swift began her career in country music, a genre particularly popular with conservatives.
She did not share her political views until 2018, when she announced her support for two Democratic candidates in Tennessee for the midterm elections.
Since then, she has also championed abortion rights and the rights of the LGBT+ community, issues championed by Democratic candidate Kamala Harris. I BGNES
