| schema:text
| - Swift did not present a Nazi salute. An unknown user horizontally mirrored the picture, manipulating its contents to appear as if Swift raised her right arm — the arm designated for such a salute. A video of the same performance confirmed she blew a kiss to the crowd, then raised her left arm and waved.
A rumor circulating online in January 2025 claimed a photo depicted 14-time Grammy Award-winning recording artist Taylor Swift holding a microphone at a concert performance and giving a Nazi salute.
For example, X user End Wokeness (@EndWokeness), and whose account displayed over 3.4 million followers, posted (archived) two photos with the caption, "Does this mean Swifties = HitIer youth?" One of the pictures showed German dictator Adolf Hitler giving a Nazi salute. The other image featured Swift also appearing to raise her right arm in the same manner. The post received well over 7 million views.
Swift previously endorsed former Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democratic, during her 2024 presidential campaign. Harris' Republican opponent, Donald Trump, won the election.
However, this rumor about a photo of Swift giving the Nazi salute was not true. As the Polish Pravda Association fact-checking organization reported in October 2024, an unknown user horizontally mirrored the picture, making it appear as if she extended her right arm — the arm designated for performing a Nazi salute. In reality, the original image confirmed she extended her left arm, and a YouTube video (skip to 4:18 mark) from a 2014 concert performance on the U.S. ABC network program "Good Morning America" showed Swift blowing a kiss and waving at the crowd with her left hand.
Because someone manipulated the original image, we have rated this rumor as fake.
Elon Musk's Viral Gesture
Online users discussed the misleading rumor about Swift in the days after a viral political moment in which tech entrepreneur Elon Musk twice extended his right arm outward from his heart while delivering a speech at an Inauguration Day event for Trump. We previously reported the users who shared videos of Musk making the gesture omitted his remark, "My heart goes out to you." Even so, Wired and Rolling Stone reported some neo-Nazi and far-right users interpreted the action as a Nazi salute.
In response to the news about Musk's gesture, he replied (archived) to one user on his social media platform, X, who quoted his line, "My heart goes out to you," with an emoji showing a face and hearts. Musk also posted he believed "legacy media propaganda" improperly reported on the matter, specifically addressing (archived) his disagreement with a Wikipedia page reading, "In his speech during the second Trump inauguration, Musk twice extended his right arm towards the crowd in an upward angle. The gesture was compared to a Nazi salute or fascist salute. Musk denied any meaning behind the gesture."
Musk, whose account displayed nearly 214 million X followers, reposted the post about Swift from the End Wokeness user, as well as another popular post (archived) displaying the same manipulated picture.
(X)
Users submitted numerous community notes to help correct the record for both posts. However, as of this writing, none of those users' drafts publicly displayed as approved notes under either post.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)