What is a psyop? Taylor Swift's Fox News conspiracy theory sparks massive online trolling 

Fox News anchor Jesse Watters insinuated that Taylor Swift was a “psyop” and “asset” of the Biden administration on the night of January 9, 2024, during his show Jesse Watters Primetime. Here’s how he exactly put it.

"Around four years ago, the Pentagon's psychological operations unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset during a NATO meeting. What kind of asset? A psyop for combating online misinformation."

He also added that not only was President Joe Biden benefitting from the arrangement swaying voters his way, but so was Taylor Swift, which is why her fan base suddenly grew, and she became a household name.

Meanwhile, guest Stuart Kaplan, a former FBI personnel, told Watters that his theory might be right and that it is possible that Swift had no idea how she was being “utilized in a covert manner to swing voters.”

As soon as Jesse Watters' conspiracy theory about Taylor Swift being a psyop emerged online, he faced immense trolling. His claims were regarding Swift urging her followers to register to vote in September 2023.

For those unaware, “psyop” means a psychological operative who participates in clandestine psychological operations and is usually recruited by the government, military, or the police to influence the beliefs, emotions, and behavior of the masses, as per the Oxford Dictionary.

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Internet mocks Jesse Watters and Fox News for Taylor Swift's psyop conspiracy theory

On Tuesday night, Fox News’ Jesse Watters introduced a conspiracy theory that Taylor Swift might be a pro-Biden psyop and a Pentagon asset. In the now-viral video, Jesse Watters says that despite enjoying Swift’s music, he wonders “why or how she blew up like this.”

He answered his question by floating a theory that she was part of a “covert pact” with the current government and helped them endorse their agenda and influence the American voters.

Watters went on record to say that Swift may have become a “psyop” four years back, and it was “Pentagon’s psychological operations unit” that hired her during a NATO conference. He also hinted that the sole goal was to make the Lover songstress help them fight “online misinformation.” However, later, he stated how his claims lacked any evidence.

After making his allegations, Jesse Watters also showed a clip from a 2019 NATO conference on the topic of online misinformation where he claimed that the speaker was part of the Pentagon’s psyop unit, who was “pitching” NATO to make the singer-songwriter into an “asset.”

However, Business Insider identified the speaker as Alicia Marie Bargar, a data engineer with no ties to either NATO or the Pentagon. She clarified how her comments were taken out of context and added that her speech was “an academic presentation at an open conference for discussing cyber security challenges.”

Furthermore, while she did mention Taylor Swift, she was just “an incidental example of a famous person to explain a social network analysis concept to the audience.”

In the wake of Jesse Watters’ conspiracy theories, he has faced severe backlash and trolling on X. Here are some of them from the comment section of @acyn’s tweet.

So far, representatives from NATO have not commented on the psyop accusations. Taylor Swift, too, did not address the issue. However, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh defended Swift and slammed Watters for the "psyop" theory. She told Politico on Wednesday, “As for this conspiracy theory, we are going to shake it off.”

Singh added,

“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 also used the opportunity to mention Swift’s famous number, I Wish You Would, in this regard.

Interestingly, towards the end of his show, Jesse Watters clarified how he had “no evidence” that Taylor Swift was “a front for a covert political agenda,” and if and when they did, they would share it.

He wrapped up with,

"But we're curious. Because the pop star who endorsed Biden is urging millions of her followers to vote… I wonder who got to her, from the White House, or wherever."

For the uninitiated, Jesse referred to Swift sharing a vote.org link in September 2023 on her Instagram Story on National Voter Registration Day and urged fellow Americans to use their voices and make the correct choice in the 2024 election. But she took no sides. In fact, to this date, she has not promoted anyone for the upcoming election.

As per Vice, vote.org reported that within an hour of her appeal, there was a 1226 percent growth in the website’s traffic, with more than 35,000 new voters registering, which was the maximum since 2020 and 23 percent more than in 2022. Also, the number of voters aged 18 also rose by 115 percent.

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All you need to know about Alicia Marie Bargar’s 2019 speech

In the footage shown by Jesse Watters during his Primetime show, data engineer Alicia Marie Bargar was the speaker at a seminar on combating online misinformation titled “Information Warfare: Defining and Analyzing.” It was held in May 2019 in Tallinn, Estonia, and was part of the 11th International Conference on Cyber Conflict.

She began by suggesting ways to “counter the information operation.”

"The idea is that social influence can help encourage or promote behavior change, potentially as a peaceful information operation. I include Taylor Swift in here because she's a fairly influential online person. I don't know if you've heard of her."

In other parts of the speech, not shown on Jesse Watters Primetime, Bargar said that the best way to tackle misinformation ethically was “with people,” such as Swift.

Notably, at that time, Bargar was a research engineer for Johns Hopkins University and was invited as a guest speaker. Meanwhile, the event was organized by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence, and NATO StratCom moderated the panel.