Snapchat is drawing a firmer line between human creativity and machine-generated content. Starting this month, the platform will no longer recommend wholly AI-generated videos on Spotlight, its TikTok-style feed. The company says the shift is designed to prioritize what it calls "authentic, human-made content." Users can still upload AI-generated videos to Spotlight, but those posts will be removed from the recommendation pool for anyone who does not already follow the creator.
An evolving policy
The change marks an escalation of a policy Snap first outlined in April under the banner "Still Spotlight, But Still Real." At that time, the platform signaled that its ranking algorithms would begin favoring original content over repurposed or automated material. According to Snap, the number of unique Spotlight contributors globally has grown more than 120 percent compared with the same period last year. The company is framing that growth as evidence that human creators are already choosing Spotlight as a destination for original videos.
Snap is also drawing a deliberate distinction between AI used as a replacement for human creativity and AI used as a tool to enhance it. Content that has been edited or augmented using Snapchat's own AI creative features will remain eligible for recommendation. Those posts will carry transparency indicators so viewers know that AI was part of the creation process. The difference, the company says, is between a video made entirely by a machine and one where a human used AI to sharpen the edit, adjust lighting, or add playful effects.
Defining "wholly AI-generated"
Defining "wholly AI-generated" is itself a challenge. A video created entirely by an AI model from a text prompt, with no human editing or input beyond the initial prompt, falls clearly inside the ban. But the boundaries blur when a creator uses AI to generate individual clips and then assembles them with original footage, or when AI is used to write a script that a human then performs. Snap's policy attempts to navigate that grey zone by focusing on whether the final output is substantially original. The company has not published a detailed rubric, but the transparency indicators that accompany posts touched by Snap's own AI tools are intended to make the distinction more visible to viewers.
The decision has divided creators. Some have welcomed the change, arguing that Spotlight was becoming overrun with low-effort AI videos that rely on viral prompts and automated production pipelines. Others, however, have pointed out that many small creators use AI tools to compete with larger studios that have bigger budgets. Banning AI-generated videos from recommendations could, in their view, widen the gap between professional media companies and independent creators. Snap has not offered an appeal process for creators whose videos are flagged as fully AI-generated, which has raised concerns about transparency and fairness.
A broader industry crackdown
The broader context is a platform-wide reaction against AI slop. LinkedIn added a "seems like AI slop" reporting button last week and now suppresses generic AI-generated posts from recommendations. YouTube has cut revenue sharing for template-made AI videos. Substack, the newsletter platform, recently partnered with Pangram to automatically detect AI-written content, with its CEO explicitly stating that the feature was built because the company did not want to
Source:TNW | Apps News