YouTube steps up crackdown on fake movie trailers

In recent years, YouTube has been plagued by the proliferation of fake movie trailers created using neural networks. These videos, which use real movie titles and famous actors, had nothing to do with official projects, but attracted millions of views, bringing in monetization income for their creators. After months of fighting such content, the platform has taken new drastic measures against deceivers.



YouTube has de-monetized the Screen Trailers and Royal Trailer channels, which are associated with Screen Culture and KH Studio. Despite their small number of subscribers, these pages systematically misled viewers by publishing both completely fake trailers and official trailers for famous films, such as The Thunderbolts*, supplemented with AI-generated scenes.

In response to the abuse, the platform has tightened its rules, stating that sanctions, including exclusion from the partner program, will be applied to all channels associated with violators. The problem of fake trailers has long been a concern for users, and an investigation conducted by journalists in March showed that some film companies were even profiting from this by redirecting revenue from such videos into their budgets. Now, apparently, the era of unpunished deception has come to an end.