For a while, AI slop was mostly harmless filler: fake animals, invented recipes, videos made to farm clicks. It has now found politics. A wave of AI-generated “news” channels on YouTube is manufacturing stories of economic collapse in Democratic-run states. Some are pulling hundreds of thousands of views.
The videos follow a formula. They claim big companies are fleeing California. Shops are running out of food. Teachers are quitting in droves. One channel, @MeganWright62, posted a false claim that Walmart was closing hundreds of California stores. CNN debunked it. In January, President Trump shared it anyway.
Much of the wave targets Gavin Newsom, a likely 2028 candidate. His team told Semafor it has worked with YouTube to remove more than 700 accounts since January. It used the platform’s “likeness protection” system, which flags a face used without permission. More than 100 carried false claims about Newsom and California.
The scale is the point. One channel, New York Reports, ran a video headlined “Wells Fargo LEAVES to Florida.” Stitched from unrelated clips, it drew about 300,000 views. Others falsely claimed Target had shut all its New York shops and that JP Morgan had quit the city. After Semafor flagged them, YouTube pulled several for breaking its spam rules.
