Spotify and LinkedIn crack down on low-quality AI spam

In short: Spotify and LinkedIn are adding new tools and rules to reduce low-quality, mass-produced content made with AI.

What's going on

Reports say many online platforms are seeing a surge of what some people call “AI slop,” meaning low-quality content that is quickly made in large amounts using AI. This is not the same as all AI-assisted work. It refers to posts, comments, or songs that feel generic, repetitive, or misleading.

Spotify said it removed more than 75 million spammy tracks in the past year. The company said these removals included duplicate tracks and other uploads meant to game the system. Spotify is also tightening policies around impersonation, when someone pretends to be another artist, plus spam filtering and clearer disclosure when music is AI-generated.

LinkedIn is taking a different approach. It says it is not trying to ban AI use outright. Instead, it wants to reduce the reach of posts that lack original insight, expertise, or perspective, and it has added a “seems like AI slop” reporting option so users can flag it.

LinkedIn also said it is using “classifiers,” which are automated sorting tools (like a spam filter for email), to spot likely low-quality AI content and show it to fewer people.

What to watch

This problem is ongoing. Spotify has faced user complaints that AI-generated tracks still appear in discovery areas like playlists, which suggests spam can still slip through. More platforms may add reporting buttons and automated filters, but it will remain a cat-and-mouse game as AI makes it cheaper to produce huge volumes of content.

Source: NYTimes