Snapchat joins other popular platforms in fight against 'AI slop'

Snapchat has joined major platforms like YouTube, LinkedIn, and Substack in their efforts to combat the surge of AI-generated content, often referred to as "AI slop". This artificial intelligence-produced content, which can range from text to realistic videos, has become increasingly prevalent due to the rapid development of user-friendly generative AI tools.

In response, Snapchat announced that it will no longer recommend entirely AI-created videos in its Spotlight feed, favoring authentic, human-made content. Unlike some of its counterparts, Snapchat does not ban all AI-generated content on the platform, instead opting to maintain some AI-enhanced or edited content in user recommendations.

The company acknowledged that such AI-generated content is generally low-quality, repetitive, and not what Snapchat users typically desire. Surveys show that many people find AI-generated content unappealing, and the more of it they encounter, the less likely they are to perceive any content on the platform as genuine. Substack's CEO, Chris Best, likened the situation to "it's getting harder to tell what's real on the internet."

LinkedIn introduced a feature allowing users to report suspected AI-generated posts or comments, while also removing an automated prompt that offered AI-enhanced post refinement. The platform caught billions of attempts to post AI-generated content in recent months. YouTube, owned by Google, also updated its policies to categorize videos as generic, repetitive, or template-based, which are less likely to be monetized, in an effort to reduce the presence of AI-generated, low-quality content.

YouTube's trust and safety chief, Matt Halprin, noted that while AI tools can aid content creation, they are more often misused to produce fake and low-quality videos.