Advocacy groups and experts have accused YouTube of providing low-quality, artificial intelligence-generated videos to its most vulnerable viewers: children.
In a letter to YouTube CEO Neil Mohan and Sundar Pichai, CEO of YouTube’s parent company Google, children’s advocacy group Fairplay expressed “serious concerns” about the proliferation of AI-generated videos on both YouTube and YouTube Kids. The letter, sent Wednesday morning, was signed by more than 200 organizations and individual experts such as child psychiatrists and educators.
“This ‘AI tilt’ negatively impacts children’s development by distorting children’s sense of reality, overwhelming their learning processes, and hijacking their attention spans, thereby increasing online time and displacing offline activities necessary for children’s healthy development,” the letter said. “These harms are especially serious for young children.” The letter calls on YouTube to clearly label all AI-generated content and to ban AI-generated content on YouTube Kids. It also proposes banning the recommendation of AI-generated videos to users under 18 and implementing an option that parents can turn off even if their children search for AI-generated content.
The letter was signed by 135 organizations, including the American Federation of Teachers and the American Counseling Association, and about 100 experts, including Jonathan Haidt, author of “An Anxious Generation.” The letter is part of a larger campaign by Fairplay, which also includes a petition.
Much of this AI-generated content is fast-paced, with bright colors, vibrant music, and clickbait titles, working to capture the attention of younger audiences, the letter outlines. There is a growing movement online against AI-generated content, especially when it looks and feels low-quality, or leans toward “brain-rotting” meaninglessness.
Spokesperson Boots Bullwinkle said in a statement that YouTube “has high standards for content on YouTube Kids, including limiting AI-generated content in the app to a small number of high-quality channels.”
“We’re also giving parents the option to block channels. Across YouTube, we’re prioritizing transparency when it comes to AI content, labeling content from our own AI tools, and requiring creators to disclose realistic AI content,” Bullwinkle said. “We are constantly evolving our approach to stay current as the ecosystem evolves.”
YouTube’s current policy regarding AI-generated content requires creators to disclose if their “realistic” content was created using modified or synthetic media that includes generated AI. Creators are not required to disclose when generated AI is used to create clearly unrealistic content, such as animated videos or videos with special effects.
YouTube said it is actively working on developing labels for YouTube Kids.
Fairplay argues in its letter that its voluntary disclosure policy and “extremely restrictive” definition of modified and synthetic content means that children will still be exposed to a flood of AI-generated videos that are not labeled as such. They also claim that many children who watch YouTube videos are not yet able to read or understand things like AI disclosures. As a result, children “must either fend for themselves or their parents play whack-a-mole,” the letter says.
Fairplay’s campaign comes on the heels of Google’s AI Futures Fund investing $1 million in Animaj, according to Bloomberg. Animaj is an AI animation studio that creates videos for kids that attract incredibly high viewership.
The campaign follows a landmark ruling in a social media addiction trial in which a California jury found YouTube designed its platform to attract young users without regard for their health. Meta was also found liable on the same charges as YouTube in the same incident.
“Pushing AI Slop onto young children is just another proof that YouTube and YouTube Kids are designed to make the most of children’s online time, including infants. AI Slop hypnotizes young children, making it difficult for them to move away from screens and into important activities like play, sleep, and social interaction,” Rachel Franz, director of Fairplay’s Early Childhood Thrive Offline Program, said in a statement. “Plus, YouTube’s algorithm doesn’t allow kids to avoid AI slop.”
Earlier this year, YouTube chief Mohan listed “managing AI slop” as one of the company’s priorities for 2026. In a blog post in January, he wrote that the company is “actively building on established systems that have been highly successful in combating spam and clickbait, and reducing the spread of low-quality and repetitive content.”
