YouTube's updated filters are good news for anyone sick of Shorts

New filters may reduce exposure to AI-generated slop

by · TechSpot

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What just happened? In a move that will be welcomed by many people, YouTube has introduced several new search filters to the platform that allow users to, among other things, exclude Shorts from their results. It's especially pleasing given the huge number of AI slop-filled Shorts that are currently populating YouTube.

YouTube writes that as a result of user feedback, it is enhancing the search experience by updating the filters. In addition to introducing new options, others are being renamed and removed.

The biggest change relates to Shorts. YouTube has added a new Shorts option as a dedicated content type in the Type filter. It means you can now choose to search through long-form videos or Shorts exclusively.

YouTube is also changing the name of the Sort By menu. It will now be called Prioritize. According to the post, this refined sorting menu aims to maximize utility.

Elsewhere, the View count sort option has now been renamed to Popularity. YouTube will not only assess a video's view count, but also other metrics such as watch time to determine its popularity for specific queries.

Some filters are being removed in the update. Upload Date – Last Hour and Sort by Rating were not working as expected and had contributed to user complaints, according to YouTube. As such, they are being purged.

YouTube will still show other filters in the Upload Date section, including Today, This Week, This Month, and This Year.

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A report last month found that over 21% of YouTube videos being shown to new users can be defined as AI slop – careless, low-quality content generated by computer applications and used to farm views and subscriptions or sway political opinion.

The report also looked at the most popular AI slop channels' statistics. Most of the views, 8.45 billion, came from South Korea, followed by Pakistan (5.34 billion) and the US (3.39 billion). Depressingly, the most popular of these channels earn over $4 million per year in ad revenue.

Unfortunately, YouTube doesn't require creators to label AI-generated videos in a way that's searchable or filterable, so you can't filter them in the traditional sense.