Katarzyna Petru
End of Earning on Auto-Pilot
YouTube is finally taking action against creators who have little to do with "creation." Starting July 15, the platform will begin enforcing rules that have been inactive until now – if you want to earn money, you must publish original and authentic content. Previously, these rules mainly targeted those who copied other people's videos, but now the focus is on those who use generative AI to mass-produce junk content. We’re talking about videos created without any human involvement: AI spouting random phrases, stock backgrounds, news copied from Google News. This is not only senseless – it’s simply a flood that poisons the entire YouTube ecosystem.
AI as a tool? Yes. As a generator of garbage? No.
Google does not say "no" to technology as such. The problem is not that someone uses AI – the problem is how they use it. More and more channels are generating "true crime" stories about murders that never happened. The victims and perpetrators are fictional, but that does not stop algorithms from promoting this content and driving it to millions of views. Other channels produce music generated by AI – banal, shallow, but looped in a way that extracts listens. Yet others provide commentary on events – without commentary. Basically, they are AI-clones of what can be read on news portals, just packaged in a synthetic voice and devoid of anything that could be called added value.
Changes in the Partner Program will hit mass creators
YouTube announces that it will no longer reward this. The changes were announced by Rene Ritchie, head of the platform's editorial team. From now on, algorithms will recognize low-quality content and automated content, and channels that primarily rely on such content will gradually be excluded from monetization. Importantly – YouTube does not intend to target people who comment on news or analyze events, but emphasizes that the key will be originality of perspective and uniqueness of interpretation. If the material duplicates what is already on dozens of other channels, and the only thing that changes is the voice and order of sentences – there is nothing to hope for.
Attempt to Save the Quality of the Platform
There is much more behind this decision than just the fight against clickbait. It is an attempt to save the quality of YouTube, which increasingly resembles a landfill of AI-generated content created solely to boost reach. Google – which is itself developing AI tools – has begun to realize that without a clear boundary, the platform will start eating its own tail. Therefore, it has been decided to cut off the power: without the ability to earn money, junk channels will likely cease to exist. Is this enough? Hard to say. But at least a signal has finally emerged that quality and creativity are once again meant to mean something.
