- YouTube is updating Shorts recommendations to prioritize original content and reduce the reach of low-effort reuploads from other creators.
- Reused clips can still surface if creators add meaningful commentary, editing, storytelling, or another original angle.
- For viewers, the change should make the Shorts feed feel less repetitive, while creators clipping their own long-form videos likely won’t be affected.
YouTube Shorts have never exactly been a fan-favorite feature. From users wanting Shorts to be a standalone app, to YouTube itself letting users set their daily Shorts feed limit to zero, there’s no shortage of signs pointing to how unhappy many users are with how aggressively short-form video has been pushed across the platform. One of the big reasons behind the disdain is the sheer amount of slop that floods the Shorts feed. YouTube knows that, and it is now starting to prioritize original content on Shorts.
Announced by the streaming giant in a blog post this week, YouTube is updating its recommendation system specific to Shorts to reduce the reach of re-uploaded content, where videos taken from other creators are reposted without adding anything meaningful.
