As reported by Deadline, the Google-owned video platform has terminated two massive YouTube channels that peddled fake, AI-generated movie trailers, in what is one of the most high profile actions it's taken against the AI spam polluting the platform. Combined, the channels - called Screen Culture, based in India, and KH Studio, based in the US - boasted over two million subscribers and more than one billion views.
Concord, NH - Attorney General John M. Formella and a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general are calling on Meta to better enforce its own policies about pharmaceutical and wellness ads on Instagram and Facebook and take additional measures to prevent AI-generated weight loss content in ads. These ads are likely to see an uptick during the holiday season and the new year, when conversations around weight loss and appearance tend to increase.
A few months ago, I went to a birthday party at a bar in Neepsend, an old industrial neighbourhood by the River Don in Sheffield. The bar had been a steelworks once, but now it was another example of the international style you find everywhere, from Portland, Oregon, to all the other Portlands in Canada, England, Australia, and New Zealand: exposed brick, steel beams, concrete floors, Edison bulbs. The steelworkers had been transformed into accountants and brand managers, the molten pig iron into £9 cocktails.
Merriam-Webster has settled on a word that represents 2025 - and that word is "slop." The dictionary-maker defines "slop" as "digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence," something that many people have become familiar with as AI-generated content permeates the internet. This year, some of the most popular sites on the web took steps to stave off the infestation of AI slop, including YouTube, Wikipedia, Spotify, and Pinterest.
the company removed dozens of videos featuring Deadpool, Moana, Mickey Mouse, Star Wars characters and other Disney IP as of Friday, just days after Disney accused it of "infringing Disney's copyrights on a massive scale." The letter, seen by both publications earlier this week, called out Google not just for hosting these videos on YouTube, but also for using copyrighted works to train models including Veo and Nano Banana.
"Seattle's cosplay photography is a treasure trove of inspiration for fans of the genre. Check out these real-life cosplay locations and photos taken by @mrdangphotos. From costumes to locations, get the scoop on how to recreate these looks and capture your own cosplay moments in Seattle." effect, in which bots are essentially eating themselves over and over, in order to game their own systems.
Despite the rise of AI-generated summaries, ranking for key search terms remains essential, and authentic video content will become even more valuable for SEO and GEO visibility. SEO won't be going anywhere, GEO will still use top ranking results as one of the parameters when looking for references, so it's still important to rank on important keywords that are relevant to business.
Reddit is considered one of the most human spaces left on the internet, but mods and users are overwhelmed with slop posts in the most popular subreddits. A Reddit post about a bride who demands a wedding guest wear a specific, unflattering shade is sure to provoke rage, let alone one about a bridesmaid or mother of the groom who wants to wear white. A scenario where a parent asks someone on an airplane to switch seats so they can sit next to their young child is likely to invoke the same rush of anger.
SkyWalk fraudsters have embedded secret web browsers inside various iOS gaming apps. These apps are downloadable in the App Store and appear legitimate. Their games are playable. But when a user opens one, the app also secretly launches hidden websites on the user's iOS device. As the user plays "Sushi Party" or "Bicycle Race" in the app, the hidden sites run in the background, undetected, serving ads no one sees. Impressions are reported. Advertisers get billed. Not a single ad is viewed by a human.
While I'm not proud to say it, I do occasionally scroll TikTok to kill a few brain cells and a few minutes in my day. My partner also sends me TikToks which she says is her love language, which I in turn use to justify the habit. But these days I'm seeing a trend, there is a stark increase in comments trying to figure out whether a video is AI.