Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian losing hordes of followers amid boycott tied to Gaza war

Taylor Swift and Kim Kardashian are being pressured to speak out on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as fans coordinate a social media boycott in the hopes they’ll take a public stand.

The stars’ Instagram accounts have been impacted as part of #blockout2024, or what TikTok user @ladyfromtheoutside last week referred to as a “digital guillotine.”

“We gave them their platforms,” the internet personality said in a May 9 video, which has since been seen over 2.5 million times. “It’s time to take it back, take our views away, our likes, our comments, our money by blocking them on all social media and digital platforms.”

At the time of publication, Swift’s Instagram lost nearly 400,000 followers since May 9 — including over 103,000 on May 11 alone — according to Social Blade, which tracks the stats of social media platforms.

Kardashian, who’d already been losing thousands of followers a day before the TikTok video, has lost nearly 475,000 followers since May 9. But the “thanK you aIMee” singer and SKIMS founder still boast 283 million and 363 million Instagram followers, respectively.

On Oct. 7, Hamas — which runs Gaza — slaughtered an estimated 1,200 in a bloody attack on Israel and kidnapped roughly 250 people. Most of those killed and held captive are believed to be civilians.

Israel’s air and ground offensive has since crumbled Gaza into ruins and resulted in the deaths of more than 35,000 Palestinians, local authorities said this week. Humanitarian aid has been largely blocked from reaching the devastated region. Earlier this month, the U.N. said northern Gaza has entered a “full-blown famine.”