WASHINGTON - The White House said on Friday it was alarmed by fake online images of the pop singer Taylor Swift and said social media companies have an important role to play in enforcing their own rules to prevent the spread of such misinformation.

Fake sexually explicit images of Swift proliferated across social media this week, including one image shared on X, formerly Twitter, that the New York Times said was viewed 47 million times before the account was suspended.

"This is very alarming. And so, we're going to do what we can to deal with this issue," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a news briefing, adding that Congress should take legislative action on the issue.

Lax enforcement against false images, possibly created by artificial intelligence (AI), too often disproportionately affects women, Jean-Pierre said.

"So while social media companies make their own independent decisions about content management, we believe they have an important role to play in enforcing, enforcing their own rules to prevent the spread of misinformation, and non consensual, intimate imagery of real people," Jean-Pierre said.

(Reporting by Nadita Bose and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Bill Berkrot)