The Justice Department wants to “break up Live Nation.” Taylor Swift fans are ready for this.

Two years ago, many Taylor Swift fans started an online campaign with one goal: to take down Ticketmaster.

After the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation, was announced, some Swifties said they felt their advocacy efforts were paying off.

“It shows the power of bringing people together who have something in common, and it’s maybe not what you might expect them to have in common,” Stephanie Aly, a writer and digital organizer, said at New York.

The 34-year-old was among the Swifties who banded together in 2022 to collect thousands of survey responses from other fans who shared similar negative experiences with Ticketmaster.

Swifties “get people to vote in the VMAs and buy albums the day they come out and all that kind of stuff,” Aly said. “What if we could direct that energy toward something that can make a bigger difference than just selling albums?” ?”

Frustration with the ticketing company began to boil over in late 2022 after overcrowded pre-sale queues for the domestic leg of Swift’s 2023 “Eras Tour” caused the site to crash and led Ticketmaster to cancel the sale. The fiasco quickly caught the attention of Swift herself, who called it “excruciating” to watch. That prompted Ticketmaster to issue an apology and promise to give some fans a second opportunity to redeem tickets they missed.

For years, fans have complained about Ticketmaster, which has effectively become the default ticketing platform for many artists. Live Nation, which merged with Ticketmaster in 2010, controls about 70% of the market for ticketing and live event venues, although the companies have disputed that figure.

Many artists have also lobbied for ticketing reform at the federal level, without success. Pearl Jam tried to move the issue forward 30 years ago when members of the rock band testified before Congress, claiming that Ticketmaster had refused to accept low concert ticket prices and fees. The case was dismissed a year later, but Ticketmaster’s dominance persisted in the decades that followed.

But it’s the Swifties who have proven to be a powerful force in driving momentum and helping more people pay attention.

The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing in January 2023 to examine Ticketmaster’s dominance in the ticketing industry. During the bipartisan hearing, which focused on whether Ticketmaster’s outsized control had unfairly harmed customers, even senators couldn’t help but reference Swift.

Swift’s fans are “very good at bonding together, using their time and resources to solve problems,” said Jeff Harden, a political science professor at the University of Notre Dame.

“They’re also very digitally savvy,” said Harden, co-author of a study published in March on how Swifties’ personal grievances against Ticketmaster mobilized large crowds of unlucky fans toward political action.

He described Swifties as “some of the most intense fans of any musical artist or sports team or anything else that I have ever witnessed personally.”

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“So when all those things come together, you get a really powerful group,” Harden said.

As aggrieved “Eras Tour” ticket buyers began organizing against Ticketmaster online, Swifties filed two major lawsuits against Live Nation in December 2022, just a month after the initial ticketing disaster.

A class action lawsuit was dropped late last year, while another suit, filed jointly by 355 individual ticket buyers, has stalled pending a decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Justice Department’s lawsuit alleges that Live Nation engaged in practices that harm the entire live entertainment industry — from artists and fans to venues and startups seeking to break into the sector. In a statement, Live Nation said the Justice Department’s allegations were “baseless” and that its actions would prove counterproductive.

Some Swifties celebrated the news on social media Thursday.

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“The doj is considering splitting up Ticketmaster and Live Nation?? Yeah for literally everyone who wanted tickets to an event,” wrote the Swifties fan account Want Tickets on X. “They are literally huge monopolies and need to be dismantled”

“Corrupt business practices are a scourge on every show, but I think the Swifties spotlight on Ticketmaster, starting in 2022, helped push the DOJ to take action,” another X user wrote.

A Live Nation spokesperson did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment regarding the reaction from Swift’s fans.

Jennifer Kinder, a lawyer (who describes herself as a Swiftie) who represents hundreds of plaintiffs in their lawsuit against Ticketmaster, said the company “definitely got the wrong fans.”

“For the first time, Swifties and the members of this cause of action are validated by what we have been complaining about for a year and a half,” she said. “It is certainly pleasing, and a moment for celebration, that the Department of Justice agrees with Swifties in the United States that consumers are being defrauded, robbed and marginalized in the live entertainment industry .”

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Kinder said this new lawsuit — filed in the Southern District of New York and supported by attorneys general from 29 states plus Washington, D.C. — marks a major victory for Swift’s fans, who have been among the most ardent in this battle policy.

“We don’t mess with Swifties. Everyone knows that, right? Kinder said, before referencing a song from Swift’s latest album “The Tortured Poets Department.” “Who’s afraid of little old Swifties? Well, I’m here to tell you that someone should be, because we’re not leaving.