Since Taylor Swift is the biggest pop star in the world, she has millions of people obsessing over everything she does. Of course, the topic that fans obsess over the most is her relationships. After all, fans want to know how she was affected by her parents, if she was friends with her peers like Toby Keith, and even how rich her exes are.

On top of that, fans are also interested in unexpected things about Swift like her teeth. Unfortunately for Swift, her fans also took an interest when someone tracked her jet, that she threatened to sue, and another person posted AI pictures of her, who she left alone.

This article will look at how differently Swift handled things when explicit AI pictures of her were posted and when someone tracked her jet. Then, the article will reveal that if Swift took more action about the AI pictures that could have changed the laws in America.

Taylor Swift Threatened To Sue Over Her Private Jet But Not Over AI Pictures Of Her

Over the last several years, a college student named Jack Sweeney has severely upset several celebrities. Sweeney has done this by tracking publicly available information about how stars travel by private jet and sharing that information on social media.

In February 2024, The BBC published an article about Taylor Swift's anger at Sweeney. That article brought up the fact that Elon Musk spoke out about how angry he was with Sweeney in 2012. Musk banned Sweeney from X/Twitter after accusing the college student of sharing his "assassination coordinates". Sweeney's X/Twitter account was later reinstated, however.

In 2024, the world learned that Sweeney had ticked off the biggest pop star in the world and her many devoted and outspoken fans. In fact, Swift's lawyers threatened to sue Sweeney on the pop star's behalf.

In February 2024, The Hollywood Reporter reported on the details of the cease-and-desist letter Swift's team sent to Sweeney. As a part of that letter, Swift's lawyers pointed out that she has a long history of being targeted by stalkers "and other individuals who wish her harm.”

In January 2024, a man was arrested outside of Taylor Swift's home twice in three days. This was only the most recent example of Swift having to deal with a stalker before her lawyer's cease-and-desist letter to Jack Sweeney was reported on.

Swift's lawyer went on to write about how profoundly Swift had been affected by Sweeney's reporting on her location.

“This reality has forced our client to live her life in a constant state of fear for her personal safety. That fear is and has been significantly heightened due to your reckless actions.”

Later in the cease-and-desist letter, Swift's lawyer called Sweeney's conduct illegal. "Your willful and repeated harassment of our Client is in violation of several state laws. As is your intentional, offensive, and outrageous conduct and consistent violations of our Client’s privacy."

The letter from Swift's lawyers also defined the situation as a "life-or-death" matter for the pop star. The cease-and-desist letter ended with an explicit threat to sue Sweeney.

"Accordingly, we demand that you cease and desist from any further use or operation of the Offending Accounts (and any similar accounts involving our Client), remove all content related to our Client from the Offending Accounts, and immediately stop providing information about our Client’s location to the public. If you fail to adhere to these demands immediately, and by no later than close of business on December 26, 2023, or if you continue to publish information that threatens our Client’s safety, she will have no choice but to pursue any and all legal remedies available to her."

Given the fact that Swift threatened to sue over her private jet being tracked, her reaction to another matter in February 2024 is fascinating.

At that time, there were a lot of disturbing headlines about AI photos of Swift that were being posted on social media. In fact, the images were spreading on social media so much that X/Twitter temporarily blocked users from being able to search for Swift. The block only lasted until the website could stop the images from spreading.

Even though the AI-explicit images spreading on social media were disturbing, Swift's team never threatened to sue. Instead, there were only reports about how upset Swift was with the situation.

For example, The Oakland Post published an article about how "furious" Swift was about the photos.

In addition to Swift not threatening to sue over the AI pictures, her team appears to have decided not to pursue the jet matter either. In fact, the only thing that really came from their threat to sue was more attention going to Sweeney, who spoke out about why he tracked Swift's jet.

As a part of The BBC's aforementioned article, they revealed a statement that Jack Sweeney provided to them about the cease-and-desist letter. According to Sweeney's letter, there has never been any reason to believe he intended "harm" to Swift. Sweeney then went on to write about why he revealed the location of Swift's jet.

"I actually think Swift has some good songs. I believe in transparency and public information."

Taylor Swift Suing Over The AI Pictures Could Have Been A Great Thing

After the AI images of Taylor Swift spread online, US Weekly spoke to an attorney about the situation. According to that lawyer, Neama Rahmani, Swift's team suing over the AI images could have been a huge deal.

As most people know already, making laws is usually the kind of thing that can take a long time. On top of that, once a law is written and passed, it sometimes takes much longer for the courts to decide how to interpret it.

As a result of the fact that the legal system isn't exactly nimble, it often takes a long time for it to catch up to new technology. Since AI is improving in leaps and bounds, the laws and courts aren't prepared to deal with its reality.

While talking to US Weekly, Rahmani argued that is why Swift's team suing over the AI images could have changed the legal landscape.

According to Rahmani, the laws in America over explicit AI photos were inconsistent from state to state if they existed at all. “This is [an] area of the law where really technology has outpaced the law and it’s really state-specific. Unfortunately, there is no federal law that prohibits these types of images, and there’s only a small handful of states that do prohibit it.”

Rahmani then explained to the outlet that she believed that a lawsuit from Swift could have moved legislators to craft federal AI laws to protect all Americans.

“Hopefully Taylor Swift, even though this is something that is terrible, does be an impetus for some legislative change because it really needs to happen.”