The Pentagon on Wednesday responded to reports that singer Taylor Swift may be a “front for a covert political agenda” on behalf of the Biden administration.
Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh denied the claims in a tongue-in-cheek statement to Politico.
“As for this conspiracy theory, we are going to shake it off,” she said, referencing one of Ms. Swift’s songs, titled “Shake It Off.”
“But that does highlight that we still need Congress to approve our supplemental budget request as Swift-ly as possible so we can be out of the woods with potential fiscal concerns,” she continued, adding more references to Ms. Swift’s musical catalog.
The statement from the Department of Defense followed comments made by Fox News host Jesse Watters on Tuesday night.
Mr. Watters, during his show Jesse Watters Primetime, questioned how Ms. Swift had soared in popularity over the years, noting that her sold-out “The Eras Tour” has an economic impact greater than the GDP of 50 Countries.
“Around four years ago, the Pentagon’s psychological operations unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset during a NATO meeting,” he said. “What kind of asset? A psyop for combating online misinformation.”
The Fox News host then cut to a clip from a 2019 conference on misinformation titled “Information Warfare: defining and analyzing” at the 11th International Conference on Cyber Conflict in Tallinn, Estonia.
During the conference, data engineer Alicia Marie Bargar spoke of how famous people can be used to help share information or a particular message.
‘Front for a Covert Political Agenda’
She then shared an image of Ms. Swift standing next to a “go vote” sign.
“Social influence can help encourage or promote behavior change,” she said. “So, potentially as a peaceful information operation… I include Taylor Swift in here because she’s, you know, a fairly influential online person.”
Ms. Bargar went on to note how celebrities in the United States regularly post photos of themselves with an “encouragement for people to go vote” and said that this has a measurable effect on voter turnout.
Commenting on the conference, Mr. Watters said, “It’s real. The Pentagon psyop unit pitched NATO on turning Taylor Swift into an asset for combating misinformation online.”
He then questioned whether the singer could be “a front for a covert political agenda,” noting that she has previously endorsed President Joe Biden.
However, Mr. Watters noted that he had “no evidence” to suggest that Ms. Swift was or is, in fact, “a front for a covert political agenda.”
Ms. Bargar told Business Insider in a statement on Wednesday that her comments during the 2019 conference were taken out of context.
“This was an academic presentation at an open conference for discussing cyber security challenges,” she said, adding that the conversation regarding Ms. Swift was “an incidental example of a famous person to explain a social network analysis concept to the audience.”
“This is a commonly used approach in academia to make theoretical concepts easier to understand,” Ms. Bargar told the publication.
