Snapchat has become the latest social media platform to draw a formal line against artificial intelligence-generated content flooding its recommendation feeds, announcing that wholly AI-generated videos will no longer be surfaced in Spotlight, its public short-form video discovery feature, regardless of whether creators disclose that the content was made with artificial intelligence.
Snap said the change is meant to weed out entirely AI-generated material from being shown in Spotlight, even if the use of AI is disclosed by its creator, with the company’s updated Spotlight guidelines stating that its content ranking algorithm rewards authentic, human-made content over wholly AI-generated content created outside of Snapchat, even when AI-generated content has transparency disclosures. The company said the change is designed to ensure that Spotlight remains a place where people can discover authentic creativity from real people, as low-quality, repetitive, AI-generated content becomes increasingly common across the internet.
The policy does not represent a blanket rejection of artificial intelligence on the platform. Snap said the new rules are not intended to be a rejection of AI entirely, and that creators are still permitted to use AI-powered effects and other AI tools to enhance their content, with Snapchat adding visible watermarks to content created with its own AI tools including its augmented reality effects and image editing features. The distinction the company is drawing is between artificial intelligence as a creative enhancement tool used by a human creator and artificial intelligence as the sole generator of content that a human then uploads without meaningful creative contribution, a line that reflects where most major platforms are converging as they grapple with the practical reality of artificial intelligence-generated material at scale.
Social media platforms have been grappling with how to treat the flood of AI-generated content, with LinkedIn recently announcing it would remove its own AI writing feature and allow users to report potential slop, newsletter platform Substack adding an AI detection feature, and Pinterest last year saying it would let users dial down AI-generated material in its recommendations. The convergence of these decisions across platforms that otherwise compete aggressively for the same creator and advertiser base signals an industry-wide recognition that recommending undisclosed or low-quality artificial intelligence content at scale damages user trust and platform perception in ways that outweigh whatever short-term engagement gains algorithmically promoted artificial intelligence slop might generate.
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