July 11, 2025 • 9 mins
It's a nice summer day, so Jordan and Kevin are recording this quickcast from the great outdoors and putting Power Clean to the test!
Today's discussion is about how YouTube is updating its monetization policies to combat AI-generated videos cluttering search results, addressing the growing problem of low-quality content flooding the platform.
Also, if you're attending Podcast Movement, find Jordan, Alban, or Kevin and mention you're a Buzzcast listener to receive special limited Buzzsprout swag!
Contact Buzzcast
- Send us a text message
- Tweet us at @buzzcastpodcast, @albanbrooke, @kfinn, and @JordanPods
Thanks for listening and Keep Podcasting!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jordan (00:00):
Hey there, this is Editing Jordan.
I wanted to give you a quickheads up that this episode might
sound a little different.
We want to do a live experimentof the Magic Mastering Power
Clean, and so, kevin and I, werecorded outside with bad
reception and used our AirPodmicrophones and it was a pretty
(00:22):
rough recording.
So we ran through the MagicMastering Power Clean and you
know what?
We're pretty happy with theresults.
So here's the episode.
This could be a huge mistake,but today we're recording on our
porch.
This is the porch cast now.
Kevin (00:38):
Yeah, I'm using my AirPods like version two or
something Very airpods yeah, I'malso rocking the airpods, the
older generation airpods.
Jordan (00:47):
So today we're talking about uh, youtube prepares
crackdown on mass-produced andrepetitive videos as concern
over ai slop grows.
That is a mouthful um.
Have you ever, kevin, beendoing any research?
And you go on youtube and youtry to find videos on something
(01:08):
and then you click a video thatlooks interesting and it is very
clearly AI written, aivoiceover, ai images over it.
Kevin (01:16):
Yes, 100%.
Jordan (01:16):
And you're just like.
I don't know if I can eventrust the information.
Kevin (01:19):
And it's happening more and more.
Jordan (01:21):
Yeah.
Kevin (01:21):
Like I use YouTube quite frequently to answer questions.
So how do you do something?
Or I want to learn somethingand I'll search YouTube and more
and more I'm coming acrossstuff that looks like it's the
right video for me.
So you know it's giving me theanswer that I'm looking for, and
you get a couple of minutesinto it and then I start
(01:43):
questioning like I've never seenthis person before.
It looks kind of fake.
Sometimes they just turn out tobe infomercials, where they're
just I don't understand why.
Like maybe they're trying tomonetize.
So it's kind of like they'rejust beating around the bush of
answering the question thatyou're trying to get answered.
Jordan (02:00):
Yeah.
Kevin (02:01):
You know, like we jumped around before, like anything
from like trying to fixsomething in your house, like
your AC is not working orsomething, to whatever.
Yes, these AI videos arebecoming a problem in the
YouTube space.
Jordan (02:13):
Yeah, it's almost like the AI generated content, like
just the crap.
Content is completely fillingup the feed, and so sometimes
you have to dig pages back toeven find something that, like
an actual human made.
Kevin (02:27):
Right, I think this is a problem that you know.
Free platforms that host audioand video are going to have to
deal with this.
Jordan (02:35):
Yeah.
Kevin (02:36):
It sounds like YouTube is starting to recognize this now
and trying to figure out howthey're going to process the
garbage AI slop out of theirsystem.
But like we don't really havethis too much in podcasting,
part of it is that free podcasthosting is a little bit of a
thing.
Spotify for podcasters willhost for free, and of course
(02:57):
there are people who just dopodcasting on YouTube, but for
the most part, the podcasts thatget any traction are usually
hosting on a paid service.
So yeah, there's not a lot ofspammers out there that are
interested in paying to try to,you know, put their spam content
out there.
And the other thing is thediscoverability.
It's not algorithmically drivenlike it is in the video world,
(03:19):
and so it's hard for a podcastto be like illegitimate or
trying to use some spamtechnique or something to get a
ton of traction, becausealgorithms really aren't pushing
them that much.
Now, again in the YouTube worldthere are some podcasts that
are probably doing that.
You know, more video podcastsare than traditional audio
podcasts.
But we talked about this onthis show, like Alban would
(03:41):
raise the concern about AIgenerated podcasts and could
that be a problem for podcasting, and my point was like I don't
think it will be, because wedon't have algorithms really
pushing audio podcast content tous.
When you go into Apple Podcasts,when you go into Spotify, you
can find podcast recommendations.
Podroll is another good way forpodcast recommendations to pop
up, but they're usually based oneither the number of shows that
(04:05):
are getting good engagement onthose platforms, and that is
more than just clicking tolisten.
It's not just a minute or twowhich might fool a YouTube
algorithm, but it's not going tofool like an Apple algorithm.
Gosh, this is hard to say Applealgorithm.
It's not going to fool thatbecause Apple can actually see.
You know this is an hour longepisode and how long did people
(04:27):
listen?
And you know they don'tdisclose exactly how they do
their charts, but usually theepisodes that are at the top of
their charts are all legitimatestuff.
You don't really see spammytype ai generated slop getting
to the top of any of theircharts and you certainly would
never see it like in a pod roleor something like that, because
those are all you knowrecommended by humans yeah, and
it's.
Jordan (04:47):
It's funny that you mentioned the free podcast apps
like Spotify or hostingplatforms.
I saw in Pod News this morningthat Spotify has changed its
website to say that there's now7 million podcasts on Spotify.
So, I think they're going tohave to do something very
similar to what YouTube is doingon cracking down, because
(05:10):
there's genuinely no way thateven 3 million of that 7 million
is legitimate.
There's no way.
So they have a lot of work todo.
I don't know how they're goingto do it.
I don't know how they're goingto combat that unless you know
they move to paid, like you said.
Kevin (05:28):
Right, I mean, do we feel like it's a problem for
independent podcasters who aretrying to put shows out there
and reach an?
Mean, do we feel like it's aproblem for independent
podcasters who are trying to putshows out there and reach an
audience?
Do we feel like this could beultimately a turnoff for people
who are listening to podcasts?
If the space gets more and morecrowded with junk content, how
do you get your good content tostand out?
Jordan (05:48):
I think it's going to be more of an issue with the video
podcasters, because they'rereally the ones that are
competing against this AI videomarket that's getting millions
and millions of views.
They're the ones that aregetting pushed down the
algorithm by these shows.
So I really think it's going tobe the YouTube podcasters and
potentially the Spotify ones,because Spotify also has an
(06:11):
algorithm that, you know,recommends shows and stuff like
that, and so if it finds thatall this, all this stuff, is
very similar, it's going torecommend the stuff that's
similar, which all the AI stuffis going to be similar, because
it's all coming from the samesource, I suppose.
Kevin (06:25):
Yeah, so you read the article.
What did it say that YouTube isdoing to cut down on this stuff
?
Jordan (06:30):
You know they actually didn't specify.
It said that they're updatingtheir monetization policies on
July 15th.
So what they're wanting to dois, if they find mass produced
videos that often featuresynthetic voices, stock visuals
and minimal originality, they'regoing to demonetize those
(06:51):
videos.
So they're not removing themfrom the platform, they're just
demonetizing those channelswhich, uh, it's one of those
things like when you're runninginto issues like this, like so,
with spotify combating the useof copywritten music, like I
mean, I had like 50 episodestaken down.
I imagine there's probablygoing to be a lot of people, you
(07:11):
know, posting, posting onReddit and in Facebook and stuff
, and going, oh my gosh, youtubedemonetized my channel for no
reason and, you know, maybe theyhad AI generated content in
their episode, artwork or youknow something like that and
that's gonna demonetize them.
But yeah, so they don't specifyexactly what they're doing.
(07:32):
They haven't actually updatedthe monetization terms as of yet
, so I guess we'll see.
Kevin (07:38):
Yeah, I'm sure it'll be interesting to see how it shakes
out.
Youtube is a hard world to playin and it's not necessarily
something that we're experts in.
We don't teach much on that,but it just feels like another
reason why I would cautionanybody who's thinking about
video podcasting.
It's just another thing.
You have to learn another thing, a potential pitfall.
Jordan (07:59):
Yeah, a potential pitfall.
Kevin (08:00):
And, yeah, building an audience on youtube and and
getting into the youtubeecosystem.
Like I, I you know this doesn'tsound like anything that
they're doing maliciously.
It sounds like they're tryingto protect their platform and
their environment.
But, like you mentioned, jordan, you play by all the rules and
you have all the licenses and,uh, the rights to use all the
music that you use and stuff inyour podcast.
(08:21):
But even you have been swept upa few times by these things.
Jordan (08:24):
So it happens and it's a hard fight when you're trying
to get that content back oryou're trying to get your
platform monetized again.
It's a real pain.
So we're still looking forresponses to our sound off
question asking what podcastgear do you recommend?
We're going to be talking aboutpodcasting gear and for
(08:45):
different budgets and differentexperience levels next week and
I'm really excited about theepisode.
So if you have any input onthat, make sure you tap the text
show link in the show notes andsend in.
Kevin (08:55):
Oh, hang on real quick before we go.
I just wanted to mention we areabout 30 days out from podcast
movement in Dallas, yep, and ifanyone is attending Podcast
Movement, if you're on the fence, go.
I think it's going to be agreat show.
We just got some speakersannounced this last week Jordan
is going to be doing a session,adam Curry, the podfather, is
(09:15):
going to be there doing asession, and I've been so
excited about this conference soI went out yesterday and I
ordered some really cool, uniquenew Buzzsprout swag.
Don't have a ton of it Only gotabout 70 pieces total, and so I
want it to be a surprise.
But if you're a Buzzcastlistener, find us at the
conference and if you, you know,mention hey, where's the
(09:37):
special swag for Buzzcastlisteners?
Come mention that to Jordan orI or Albin and we'll hook you up
.
Jordan (09:44):
Oh, I'm so excited.
I don't even know what this is,so it's going to be a surprise
for me too.
Kevin (09:48):
Yeah, it'll be great.
Jordan (09:49):
Awesome.
Well, I'm really lookingforward to that and, until next
week, keep podcasting.
Hey there, this is Editing Jordan.
I wanted to give you a quickheads up that this episode might
sound a little different.
We want to do a live experimentof the Magic Mastering Power
Clean, and so, kevin and I, werecorded outside with bad
reception and used our AirPodmicrophones and it was a pretty
(00:22):
rough recording.
So we ran through the MagicMastering Power Clean and you
know what?
We're pretty happy with theresults.
So here's the episode.
This could be a huge mistake,but today we're recording on our
porch.
This is the porch cast now.
Kevin (00:38):
Yeah, I'm using my AirPods like version two or
something Very airpods yeah, I'malso rocking the airpods, the
older generation airpods.
Jordan (00:47):
So today we're talking about uh, youtube prepares
crackdown on mass-produced andrepetitive videos as concern
over ai slop grows.
That is a mouthful um.
Have you ever, kevin, beendoing any research?
And you go on youtube and youtry to find videos on something
(01:08):
and then you click a video thatlooks interesting and it is very
clearly AI written, aivoiceover, ai images over it.
Kevin (01:16):
Yes, 100%.
Jordan (01:16):
And you're just like.
I don't know if I can eventrust the information.
Kevin (01:19):
And it's happening more and more.
Jordan (01:21):
Yeah.
Kevin (01:21):
Like I use YouTube quite frequently to answer questions.
So how do you do something?
Or I want to learn somethingand I'll search YouTube and more
and more I'm coming acrossstuff that looks like it's the
right video for me.
So you know it's giving me theanswer that I'm looking for, and
you get a couple of minutesinto it and then I start
(01:43):
questioning like I've never seenthis person before.
It looks kind of fake.
Sometimes they just turn out tobe infomercials, where they're
just I don't understand why.
Like maybe they're trying tomonetize.
So it's kind of like they'rejust beating around the bush of
answering the question thatyou're trying to get answered.
Jordan (02:00):
Yeah.
Kevin (02:01):
You know, like we jumped around before, like anything
from like trying to fixsomething in your house, like
your AC is not working orsomething, to whatever.
Yes, these AI videos arebecoming a problem in the
YouTube space.
Jordan (02:13):
Yeah, it's almost like the AI generated content, like
just the crap.
Content is completely fillingup the feed, and so sometimes
you have to dig pages back toeven find something that, like
an actual human made.
Kevin (02:27):
Right, I think this is a problem that you know.
Free platforms that host audioand video are going to have to
deal with this.
Jordan (02:35):
Yeah.
Kevin (02:36):
It sounds like YouTube is starting to recognize this now
and trying to figure out howthey're going to process the
garbage AI slop out of theirsystem.
But like we don't really havethis too much in podcasting,
part of it is that free podcasthosting is a little bit of a
thing.
Spotify for podcasters willhost for free, and of course
(02:57):
there are people who just dopodcasting on YouTube, but for
the most part, the podcasts thatget any traction are usually
hosting on a paid service.
So yeah, there's not a lot ofspammers out there that are
interested in paying to try to,you know, put their spam content
out there.
And the other thing is thediscoverability.
It's not algorithmically drivenlike it is in the video world,
(03:19):
and so it's hard for a podcastto be like illegitimate or
trying to use some spamtechnique or something to get a
ton of traction, becausealgorithms really aren't pushing
them that much.
Now, again in the YouTube worldthere are some podcasts that
are probably doing that.
You know, more video podcastsare than traditional audio
podcasts.
But we talked about this onthis show, like Alban would
(03:41):
raise the concern about AIgenerated podcasts and could
that be a problem for podcasting, and my point was like I don't
think it will be, because wedon't have algorithms really
pushing audio podcast content tous.
When you go into Apple Podcasts,when you go into Spotify, you
can find podcast recommendations.
Podroll is another good way forpodcast recommendations to pop
up, but they're usually based oneither the number of shows that
(04:05):
are getting good engagement onthose platforms, and that is
more than just clicking tolisten.
It's not just a minute or twowhich might fool a YouTube
algorithm, but it's not going tofool like an Apple algorithm.
Gosh, this is hard to say Applealgorithm.
It's not going to fool thatbecause Apple can actually see.
You know this is an hour longepisode and how long did people
(04:27):
listen?
And you know they don'tdisclose exactly how they do
their charts, but usually theepisodes that are at the top of
their charts are all legitimatestuff.
You don't really see spammytype ai generated slop getting
to the top of any of theircharts and you certainly would
never see it like in a pod roleor something like that, because
those are all you knowrecommended by humans yeah, and
it's.
Jordan (04:47):
It's funny that you mentioned the free podcast apps
like Spotify or hostingplatforms.
I saw in Pod News this morningthat Spotify has changed its
website to say that there's now7 million podcasts on Spotify.
So, I think they're going tohave to do something very
similar to what YouTube is doingon cracking down, because
(05:10):
there's genuinely no way thateven 3 million of that 7 million
is legitimate.
There's no way.
So they have a lot of work todo.
I don't know how they're goingto do it.
I don't know how they're goingto combat that unless you know
they move to paid, like you said.
Kevin (05:28):
Right, I mean, do we feel like it's a problem for
independent podcasters who aretrying to put shows out there
and reach an?
Mean, do we feel like it's aproblem for independent
podcasters who are trying to putshows out there and reach an
audience?
Do we feel like this could beultimately a turnoff for people
who are listening to podcasts?
If the space gets more and morecrowded with junk content, how
do you get your good content tostand out?
Jordan (05:48):
I think it's going to be more of an issue with the video
podcasters, because they'rereally the ones that are
competing against this AI videomarket that's getting millions
and millions of views.
They're the ones that aregetting pushed down the
algorithm by these shows.
So I really think it's going tobe the YouTube podcasters and
potentially the Spotify ones,because Spotify also has an
(06:11):
algorithm that, you know,recommends shows and stuff like
that, and so if it finds thatall this, all this stuff, is
very similar, it's going torecommend the stuff that's
similar, which all the AI stuffis going to be similar, because
it's all coming from the samesource, I suppose.
Kevin (06:25):
Yeah, so you read the article.
What did it say that YouTube isdoing to cut down on this stuff
?
Jordan (06:30):
You know they actually didn't specify.
It said that they're updatingtheir monetization policies on
July 15th.
So what they're wanting to dois, if they find mass produced
videos that often featuresynthetic voices, stock visuals
and minimal originality, they'regoing to demonetize those
(06:51):
videos.
So they're not removing themfrom the platform, they're just
demonetizing those channelswhich, uh, it's one of those
things like when you're runninginto issues like this, like so,
with spotify combating the useof copywritten music, like I
mean, I had like 50 episodestaken down.
I imagine there's probablygoing to be a lot of people, you
(07:11):
know, posting, posting onReddit and in Facebook and stuff
, and going, oh my gosh, youtubedemonetized my channel for no
reason and, you know, maybe theyhad AI generated content in
their episode, artwork or youknow something like that and
that's gonna demonetize them.
But yeah, so they don't specifyexactly what they're doing.
(07:32):
They haven't actually updatedthe monetization terms as of yet
, so I guess we'll see.
Kevin (07:38):
Yeah, I'm sure it'll be interesting to see how it shakes
out.
Youtube is a hard world to playin and it's not necessarily
something that we're experts in.
We don't teach much on that,but it just feels like another
reason why I would cautionanybody who's thinking about
video podcasting.
It's just another thing.
You have to learn another thing, a potential pitfall.
Jordan (07:59):
Yeah, a potential pitfall.
Kevin (08:00):
And, yeah, building an audience on youtube and and
getting into the youtubeecosystem.
Like I, I you know this doesn'tsound like anything that
they're doing maliciously.
It sounds like they're tryingto protect their platform and
their environment.
But, like you mentioned, jordan, you play by all the rules and
you have all the licenses and,uh, the rights to use all the
music that you use and stuff inyour podcast.
(08:21):
But even you have been swept upa few times by these things.
Jordan (08:24):
So it happens and it's a hard fight when you're trying
to get that content back oryou're trying to get your
platform monetized again.
It's a real pain.
So we're still looking forresponses to our sound off
question asking what podcastgear do you recommend?
We're going to be talking aboutpodcasting gear and for
(08:45):
different budgets and differentexperience levels next week and
I'm really excited about theepisode.
So if you have any input onthat, make sure you tap the text
show link in the show notes andsend in.
Kevin (08:55):
Oh, hang on real quick before we go.
I just wanted to mention we areabout 30 days out from podcast
movement in Dallas, yep, and ifanyone is attending Podcast
Movement, if you're on the fence, go.
I think it's going to be agreat show.
We just got some speakersannounced this last week Jordan
is going to be doing a session,adam Curry, the podfather, is
(09:15):
going to be there doing asession, and I've been so
excited about this conference soI went out yesterday and I
ordered some really cool, uniquenew Buzzsprout swag.
Don't have a ton of it Only gotabout 70 pieces total, and so I
want it to be a surprise.
But if you're a Buzzcastlistener, find us at the
conference and if you, you know,mention hey, where's the
(09:37):
special swag for Buzzcastlisteners?
Come mention that to Jordan orI or Albin and we'll hook you up
.
Jordan (09:44):
Oh, I'm so excited.
I don't even know what this is,so it's going to be a surprise
for me too.
Kevin (09:48):
Yeah, it'll be great.
Jordan (09:49):
Awesome.
Well, I'm really lookingforward to that and, until next
week, keep podcasting.
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