YouTube will cut the reach of re-uploaded Shorts
YouTube is updating its Shorts recommendations to favour original work, warning that channels which mostly repost other creators' videos will see less distribution.
YouTube has begun retuning its Shorts recommendations so that original work is favoured over recycled clips, a change aimed at the endless loop of reposted footage that has irritated viewers and creators alike. The update was posted to YouTube's Help Community by the TeamYouTube account.
Less reach for straight re-uploads
YouTube says its recommendation systems are designed to connect viewers with videos they find genuinely valuable, and that the change will further prioritise original content while reducing the reach of material re-uploaded from other creators without anything added. Channels identified as mainly aggregating or reposting other people's videos without significant changes are expected to see less distribution in the Shorts feed.
Re-uploads are not being removed. YouTube tells creators who work with clips to add real value through their own commentary, unique edits or storytelling, and draws the line at minor technical edits or template-based changes made simply to alter a video. Shorts cut from a creator's own long-form uploads are unaffected, because the update applies to other people's videos.
A dial, not a rulebook
There is no new policy page and no strike attached to the change. YouTube linked the update to its existing policies and gave no rollout date, which suggests the adjustment is being applied inside recommendations rather than announced as enforceable rules. It lands after a year in which Shorts was pushed harder across the platform, including opening the app straight into the feed for some users and testing generative tools that rework other channels' footage.
Our opinion
Rebalancing a recommendation system is the cheapest way to look decisive: no new rule, no takedown, no appeal queue, just a quieter funnel. It is also the right lever. Banning reposts would drag YouTube into an unwinnable argument about what counts as theft, while making them unprofitable to the algorithm costs the platform nothing and answers the single loudest complaint about Shorts. The catch is the wording. Adding nothing of your own sounds like a threshold; in practice it behaves like a dial only YouTube can see, and creators will find where it sits the way they always do, by watching their numbers. If the feed genuinely gets more original, the experiment has quietly admitted it could have been run years ago.