r/technology • u/Regular_Eggplant_248 • Jul 21 '25

Social Media YouTube wipes out thousands of propaganda channels linked to China, Russia, others

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/21/youtube-channels-propaganda-china-russia.html
29.1k Upvotes

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1.3k

u/Polyman71 Jul 21 '25

Now delete all the AI slop.

271

u/Sparky_321 Jul 21 '25

They’re supposedly going to stop monetizing it

163

u/1xliquidx1_ Jul 22 '25 edited Jul 22 '25

Nope, AI slop can still be monetized. The new rule just means posting the exact same video over and over again won't get you any money.

55

u/JudiciousSasquatch Jul 22 '25

Wow! That’ll stop ‘em! Great job, Google!

15

u/drake_warrior Jul 22 '25

Platforms like TikTok will monetize the AI slop even if YouTube doesn't, the real issue is the people who watch it and produce it. There should be zero demand for it.

0

u/jimothee Jul 22 '25

Producing it takes almost no effort. Watching takes no effort. For as long as I've lived, I've never felt like I shared a taste in media with my fellow Americans. However I never really thought about how American's preference for LCD media would eventually develop into something much more detrimental than just tasteless radio/television.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 22 '25

Did we forget Google has Gemini AI and is trying to platform AI

5

u/SaltyLonghorn Jul 22 '25

Does this mean react content, it doesn't does it?

Think of how much storage space and bandwidth they could save demonetizing react vids.

9

u/drmanhattanmar Jul 22 '25

There are react videos and there are react videos. What is unbelievably bad and stupid are these videos where a guy just sits at the bottom of the video, nodding his head, making interested faces and pointing upwards randomly. Now if there are for example historians reacting to cartoons but enrich the reaction with background information to the scenes or explaining stuff, this is another category for me.

But yeah, in general it could save a lot of space.

2

u/Xytak Jul 22 '25

True. A react video by a historian adding commentary & analysis is different than a react video where some guy just says, "oh no she didn't!" a few times.

1

u/Lord_Of_Carrots Jul 22 '25

Exactly. I have no respect for those who don't add anything to the original but putting all reaction channels to the same category is ridiculous. And it's pretty easy to tell which channels give genuine reactions and are fun/informative and which are pointless garbage

2

u/SaltdPepper Jul 22 '25

Because everyone knows AI is notoriously bad at pumping out large batches of unique content /s

1

u/lpeabody Jul 22 '25

That should be somewhat effective because it means content needs to be somewhat "original" which is more of a risk when it comes to spending money on GenAI.

1

u/essieecks Jul 22 '25

Good thing it's not possible to send the same prompt to the video generator and get a slight variation of the exact same video, right?

Right?

1

u/MiaowaraShiro Jul 22 '25

The thing I don't get about AI slop is it's not copyrightable... so why wouldn't someone just steal your shit and repost it?

1

u/ShepherdessAnne Jul 22 '25

Everyone thinks the rule has to do with AI but it’s just a content mill rule, which AI can certainly have something to do with but which manually made YCH-style pushes also count for

13

u/BlueGolfball Jul 22 '25

They’re supposedly going to stop monetizing it

I have so many "history" YouTube channels blocked because they all use AI to make up fake history stories. It was wild when I caught on to what I was watching.

56

u/redpandaeater Jul 22 '25

Also all the animal abuse channels that torture an animal just so they can then film a video pretending to save it from a cruel fate.

13

u/lonelyreject97 Jul 22 '25

get me off this planet now

23

u/Hyperious3 Jul 22 '25

They literally run the tool that people use to make AI slop

1

u/[deleted] Jul 22 '25

[deleted]

3

u/carsonthecarsinogen Jul 22 '25

Could they tho?

I’m not even slightly well read on video files or YouTube’s upload process, but how would they “know”.

Obviously there’s telling signs of AI, we all know the “look”. But that’s only bad AI videos, how would YouTube know about the good AI videos?

AI can’t even tell what AI is, unfortunately I think AI content moderation will just lead to actual creators being punished and accused of using AI.

1

u/goodolarchie Jul 22 '25

Delete it? You'll be lucky to find organic human content in a couple years time. Humans demand revenue share, AI doesn't. We'll need random noise generators on either end of the broadcast along with our decoders to verify that AI did not interfere with the content.

It's like Travis Kalanick said about Uber profitability: Our problem is the guy in the front left of the cabin.

1

u/DynamicNostalgia Jul 22 '25

Why? Why does its existence bother you so much? Why can’t you just let other people have something you don’t like? 

0

u/Polyman71 Jul 22 '25

Because so much of it is factually incorrect, and we already are too ignorant.

1

u/DynamicNostalgia Jul 22 '25

AI is a tool, there’s tons if AI videos that aren’t trying to mislead or misrepresent. 

You are attacking a tool when you need to go after the users that are speaking lies and misinformation. 

You can apply your reasoning to any tool, even Microsoft Word. 

Sorry, it’s not going away, you should probably learn tolerance instead of blanket hate. 

-92

u/BoTrodes Jul 21 '25 edited Jul 26 '25

future ancient hurry dog office ask consider public boast cats

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

48

u/tehbantho Jul 21 '25

Did AI help you write that comment to convince real people AI isn't bad for humanity?

FYI: when you use AI to generate art, YOU are not creating art. Just to be clear.

2

u/Nematrec Jul 22 '25

If they're referring to the AI tools in photoshop, like the crop tool that fills in the cropped area of a photo, they might have a point.
Very useful for redrawers of translation projects, where there's no artist creation, just technical skills used to redraw the art that was covered by the original text.

But they way they're talking it sounds like they mean get an AI to generate an image, then editting that image to "create" something "new"

3

u/artorias3000 Jul 22 '25

They literally said "for smoothing lines" and "changing color pallets" seems innocuous enough

2

u/Nematrec Jul 22 '25

Somehow I missed that entire line when I first read that comment.

-3

u/peelen Jul 22 '25

Directors work that way. They don't play, they don't edit, they don't make music. They are just giving prompts, after prompts, until they get what they want.

1

u/urnotsmartbud Jul 22 '25

Good thing you have no control over what is defined as art

1

u/peelen Jul 22 '25

YOU are not creating art.

You create art when you create art, not when you are using "correct" tools.

5

u/Prince_Uncharming Jul 22 '25

Someone creating art using AI is a broke art commissioner, not an artist. They’ve created nothing, they’ve asked a machine to create it for them.

Generating art via AI isn’t being an artist the same way a fan commissioning art of a story character they like isn’t an artist.

1

u/peelen Jul 22 '25

Directors ask actors to do what they envisioned.

The problem with AI artist is not that it’s made with AI, but because it’s made by lazy people, who think that imitating workshop or skills is enough to call it art.

Try to make let’s say 3 min. Music video with AI, but video that not only looks good, but that people will want to watch from the beginning to the end, and you’ll realize that it’s just a tool, and all heavy lifting is made by a person.

0

u/electrogeek8086 Jul 22 '25

At least there's no copyright.

-5

u/Pillars-In-The-Trees Jul 22 '25

Ah yes, the long held tradition of telling people "your art isn't art" followed up by "if it's art you didn't make it" while simultaneously saying "it's just a tool that can't make art."

Your bias is showing.

Seriously though, if you're getting your understanding of AI from the free version of ChatGPT and alarmist news, you're far worse for the internet than what AI is generating. Opinions like yours are already costing lives in medicine.

-13

u/GloomyBison Jul 22 '25

I disagree, for example if you have an idea for a computer game, you got the story and you can do the art design, but you can't code. Would you then not say you have created art just because you used AI to help you code it?

0

u/ZenBreaking Jul 22 '25

Yeah the dumpster fire doing the donkey work as you call it should get the credit for your "art". You do the prompts but it does the work while draining essential resources like water.

There's no room in art for AI because AI replaces the artist.

You talk about investing time to ensure quality but realistically the market calls for the quickest result which ensures the algorithm bleeds on and infects the next post etc etc

As bad as the internet is for humanity, AI is literally a poisoned chalice that we seem willingly to drink from

8

u/DestroyerOfAglets Jul 22 '25

I use AI to do this one specific task while I'm making art

AI replaces artists, there's no room for AI in art.

?????

Also, weird to bring up markets in a discussion about artistic merit; there's more to art than making money.

0

u/ZenBreaking Jul 22 '25

Well in this case the OP isn't making art , the AI is with their prompts.

When I say that AI replaces artists I guess we get into an existential crisis where you have to ask yourself if an AI version of Freddie mercury singing chapelle roan songs is art. Can you use AI to touch up the mona Lisa. Etc etc

I feel like there's a sterile clinical touch to AI that can't really speak to the soul of an artist whether it's technically better or not.

I mention markets because no matter how pure you think the tool is , there's gonna be somebody in the capitalist market that will utilize and abuse it for monetary value. It happens now with graphic designers and Photoshop. I refer to promo materials created by a designer for a company as art and as such the artist should be paid accordingly.

We're already seeing AI slip all over social media for casinos and scams, it's only a matter of time before legitimate business lean into it

-4

u/glossyplane245 Jul 22 '25

Go say that same thing on a stream of “ai battlegrounds 24/7 stream tung tung sahur tralalelo tralala”

4

u/DestroyerOfAglets Jul 22 '25

The existence of AI slop doesn't discredit AI because we all know that humans have been producing slop for decades and decades and decades.

There were a million cash grab live streams just like that before AI came to prominence and you know it. It's been getting worse for years, and AI is just the new tool of the trade.

2

u/glossyplane245 Jul 22 '25

He was literally responding to a comment saying to get rid of the slop though lol

-4

u/4ofclubs Jul 22 '25

Steam removes rape games:

"WAHHHH! Put them back wahhhh!"

YouTube removes channels that go against what you believe

"GOOD! THIS IS A GOOD THING! 'MURICA!"

3

u/WanderlustZero Jul 22 '25

Fucking bizarre comparison