YouTube has banned a number of channels uploading AI-generated content after an investigation from the New York Times into videos for children.
AI-generated videos and images have started appearing across a number of different social media platforms. They have been especially prevalent on the likes of X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube, however, with 20% of YouTube’s content reported to be coming from “AI slop” clips.
The platform has promised to clamp down on the “AI slop” videos, even banning some massively popular channels that had billions of views.
They’ve clamped down again following a New York Times investigation into more than 1,000 videos that are recommended to children, after reporters found “bizarre” and “often nonsensical” clips from AI being suggested by the platform’s algorithm.
YouTube suspends channels over AI videos with “misinformation”
As per the report, many of these videos contained characters with “warped faces or extra body parts,” as well as “garbled text” and “misinformation.”
After reporters presented their findings to YouTube, the platform suspended five channels from the YouTube Partner Program, which removes their revenue and monetization options. Additionally, YouTube removed some videos for “violating child safety policies” too.
“We require creators to disclose when they’ve used A.I. to create realistic content, meaning things a viewer could easily mistake for a real person, place, or event,” said Boot Bullwinkle, a YouTube spokesperson, told The New York Times.
At the end of January, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan acknowledged the number of concerns from users over AI-generated videos.
“To reduce the spread of low-quality AI content, we’re actively building on our established systems that have been very successful in combatting spam and clickbait, and reducing the spread of low-quality, repetitive content,” Mohan explained.
The platform has come under fire for giving handing moderation powers to AI, with many saying it struggles to differentiate between real content and AI-generated videos.
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