75 million songs and 130,000 channels deleted: the internet's great cleanup begins

Tech giants have begun a massive cleanup of low-quality AI content that has flooded the web. Spotify removed 75 million audio tracks, and YouTube deleted 130,000 channels. An experiment found that over 20% of short videos shown to new users are AI junk, and one channel raked in $4.25 million a year. On Apple Music, a third of content is AI-generated, and on X, nearly half of long posts. LinkedIn declared war on the phenomenon. Experts warn against a purely technical solution.

Tech giants have launched a broad cleanup operation of low-quality content generated by artificial intelligence that has flooded the web. According to a report by the New York Times, Spotify removed 75 million 'spammy' and duplicated audio tracks last year. On YouTube, 130,000 channels and 50,000 account clusters that distributed low-quality content were deleted. An experiment found that over 20% of short videos shown to new YouTube users are AI-generated junk, and one popular channel in the field reportedly earned an estimated $4.25 million a year until it was suspended. On Apple Music, more than a third of uploaded content is AI-generated, and on X, nearly half of posts longer than 50 words were created similarly. LinkedIn announced that the fight against 'AI slop' is a top priority and developed a report button. Meta is promoting detection and labeling of AI content but has faced criticism over its image generator. Experts warn that this is a systemic problem that a purely technical solution may not suffice to address.