Snapchat joins platforms redrawing rules for AI-generated content

Snapchat is cracking down on AI-generated content even while continuing to encourage creators to use its own AI tools. It highlights a growing tension across the creator ecosystem: platforms want AI to enhance human creativity, not replace it. 

The company said wholly AI-generated videos will no longer be recommended on Spotlight – its creator discovery feed. Content enhanced or edited with its own AI creative tools, however, will continue to qualify for recommendations and will include labels showing AI was used.

“Earlier this year, we shared our ambition to make Spotlight a place where original, authentic creativity stands out… we’re taking another step in that direction, updating our recommendation systems to better reward authentic, human-made content,” the company said in a statement.

Snap said the goal is to prevent repetitive AI-generated content from hurting the user experience on Spotlight. 

“This is not about rejecting AI. We know that for some, AI plays an important part of the creative process, and we believe it can unlock incredible new forms of expression,” it said.

The announcement is the latest in a string of AI-climbdowns by social media platforms as they grapple with an explosion of low-quality, synthetic content.

Matt Navarra, a social media consultant who has advised organisations including Google, Meta and the BBC, said the industry is responding to a genuine quality problem as the cost of generating video has collapsed.

"There's a genuine product quality problem with AI slop," Navarra told The Daily Influence.

"When the cost of producing video collapses to almost zero, platforms inevitably get flooded with repetitive, disposable content. It might be technically competent, but it often lacks a point of view, lived experience or any real reason to exist."

He said it becomes "an existential problem" for recommendation systems because "users do not open Snapchat hoping to watch an infinite stream of synthetic content from an AI."

Navarra believes the move also makes commercial sense for Snapchat.

"Snapchat wants to protect the perceived quality of Spotlight, differentiate itself from feeds filling up with generic, synthetic or AI content, and encourage creators to stay inside Snapchat's own creative ecosystem," he added.

Even so, the policy raises an obvious question: why does Snapchat crack down on AI-generated content while continuing to recommend videos made with its own AI tools?

Navarra said creators are entitled to see that as a contradiction, but argued the distinction is really about transparency and control.

Because content is created through Snapchat's own tools, the company knows which features were used, can automatically apply disclosure labels and introduce safety controls if problems emerge.

"With third-party AI video, the platform often receives a finished piece of AI content with very little reliable information about how it was made or where it was made."

He argued that platforms should not be viewed as neutral stages. "They are marketplaces with house rules, and the house will always favour tools that strengthen its own position."

Several platforms have introduced new measures this year to curb low-quality AI content while continuing to embrace AI more broadly.

Last week, LinkedIn began testing a reporting tool allowing users to flag posts that "seem like AI slop", while Substack launched a transparency feature enabling readers to check whether posts, Notes and comments were written by a person or with AI assistance.

TikTok has also expanded its AI transparency efforts, introducing new tools to help users identify synthetic content and saying AI-generated spam was "crowding out original creators".

For Navarra, Snapchat's announcement is part of a much broader shift.

"I don't think platforms are becoming anti-AI," he said. "The direction of travel is not anti-AI. It's anti-AI without accountability, originality or some sort of human value add."