Taylor Swift’s music made headlines once again this weekend — and created its own viral discussion online. It has also highlighted the importance of internet archiving platforms, which can provide a useful resource for fact-checking rumors.
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What happened?
The White House and its associated TikTok accounts have used Swift’s music in several videos over the last year, as reported by Reuters, often using captions that referenced Swift’s lyrics.
Similar pop stars, like Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo and Ariana Grande have been more vocally opposed to the campaign’s use of their songs online and at live events.
On March 2, the White House Director of Communications posted on X that performers who were angry about political use of their music were actually “falling for” the aims of the campaign, and drawing greater attention to the videos.
Taylor Swift had not been among the artists who had taken action in response to political use of their music. That changed last week.
On Aug. 3, the “Team Trump” TikTok page, which was the official account of the Trump campaign and still regularly posts associated content, uploaded a video of President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump watching fireworks. The video was set to Swift’s 2020 song “August.” The caption tagged Swift: “I’m sure @Taylor Swift is going to be super excited we used her song!”
By Friday, the music had been removed from the video.
Swift’s fans have both praised her choice to remove her music from Trump-associated content and offered explanations for her decision not to do so sooner. And social media may be playing a role in amplifying unverified narratives about the potential strategy behind Swift’s choice.
An unverified rumor
On Reddit, users suggested that TikTok’s policy on political usage of music had been changed because of actions from Swift and her legal team. One user posted, “New TikTok Policy, Thank You Taylor”, with a screenshot highlighting TikTok’s music policy, which says “music shouldn’t be used in a political context or for political purposes unless you have separately obtained permission from all of the rights holders to do so.”
“Taylor Swift just changed TikTok, and social media copyright policy!!!!” posted a fan account on Instagram. A screenshot of a now-deleted post from user @christinatownsendwrites went viral on threads.
Users on Threads also discussed the rumor with a very specific claim — that Swift had pressured TikTok to alter its policy to allow musicians and copyright owners to bar individual accounts from using their material, and that the previous guidelines had required fully removing content from the platform.
But it’s not clear whether that is true.
“So…I’m finding out as I was doing research for a video that there is no evidence that Taylor Swift [changed] the rules for tiktok sounds being used when she had the sound taken off of Trump team videos,” wrote Wayne Felton, who goes by @justwaynecreative on Threads.
“TikTok did NOT update their TOS for Taylor, as far as I can tell,” wrote @TheTaylorExplainer, adding “Taylor may have inspired other artists to use the tools available to them more effectively.”
TikTok did not immediately respond to Straight Arrow’s request for comment.
According to archived versions of TikTok’s website, the current political-use policy has been in place since an August 2023 Terms of Service update. Using the Wayback Machine, which records versions of online resources on different dates, Straight Arrow confirmed that the “political context” warning is not present on versions of the site prior to August 2023, but it is visible from each of 19 snapshots since December 2023.
Three strikes and out? TikTok’s copyright policy
Over on X, one user suggested that Swift had strategically waited until Trump’s account had used three of her songs, so that the repercussions would be more impactful. While a single “copyright strike” — a request from a music copyright holder to remove an unauthorized use of their music — on TikTok expires after 90 days, having three active strikes at the same time could push the Team Trump account closer to a permanent ban, under TikTok’s copyright policy.
The “August”-soundtracked video was at least the fourth time Swift’s music had been used by the Team Trump account in the last year. Two videos, featuring her songs “Opalite” and “Father Figure,” were posted last November.
A third video was posted in June, featuring her song from the Toy Story soundtrack. However, the copyright for that song is at least partially owned by Disney.
The exact date that Swift filed her complaints against the Team Trump account has not been made publicly available. However, last Thursday, the Team Trump account posted an even more overtly Swift-themed post, parodying her album “RED.” The overlaid text that reads “Did you know Taylor Swift wrote a whole album about the color of the Republican Party?” and the caption “America Is Its Red Era”.
The sound from that post was also removed over the weekend.
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