Welcome to AI Slopaganda: Who kissed whose hand?

Today, the production and replication of news via generative AI has turned the information environment and social media into a virtual junkyard, leading to the birth of a new concept. AI slop, in its most general sense, refers to rapidly produced, low-quality, low-value, yet highly distributed, repetitive, and meaningless content. The structure of social media algorithms, built on the attention economy, paves the way for the rapid spread of this junk content known as AI slop. While platforms encourage engagement, AI enables easy content production, fueling a global digital junk factory.

The relationship between AI slop, news, and propaganda on social media is expressed through the concept of “slopaganda.” Born from the dangerous marriage between generative AI and propaganda, slopaganda adds a different dimension to the approach that information is power. This implies control over the information environment and, ultimately, control over decision-making. When quantity takes precedence over quality, misinformation spreads and becomes normalized before there is time for critical thinking, weakening decision-making capacity. The recent fake and junk video on TikTok featuring the President of the Republic of Turkey, Erdoğan, kissing the hand of US President Trump—prepared with AI—is both an example of AI slop and slopaganda, having reached 2 million views in just one day. This process is dangerous and significant, especially as it paves the way for manipulation in political communication.

Short video formats like TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels provide the most suitable environments for AI slop. X, which was once seen as a digital public sphere for following the political agenda, has now become an arena for bots, fake accounts, and AI-generated junk disguised as “news.” Motivational junk produced with AI voiceovers on TikTok and AI-montage videos circulating on YouTube with “breaking news” labels are all products of an attention economy logic that prioritizes volume and quantity. In this process, while users consume more content, platforms operate the “more time, more attention, more ads” equation. The business model of these platforms harms the information ecosystem by fueling the production of low-quality content. In short, platforms do not want accurate and true stories; they want engagement and an abundance of content. Platform algorithms reward volume regardless of quality or merit, destroying the value of information and reality. Because a machine is technical. Technique has no ethics, morality, or value. While Google, Meta, and X support AI slop—in other words, while click, engagement, and view counts replace news—they simultaneously slap on a “combating misinformation” label. In other words, platforms act hypocritically, like a “health inspector auditing their own garbage collection center.”

In fact, creativity is fueled by content scarcity; a junkyard is fueled by abundance. The French music platform Deezer adds 30 thousand tracks every day, 28 percent of which are generated by AI. However, 7 out of every 10 releases containing this music are fake. While Italy has launched its first daily newspaper entirely prepared by AI, Il Foglio AI, News Corp Australia produces three thousand “local” AI news stories every week. The Turkish press is not exempt from the devaluation of labor and news through low-cost AI techniques. Just as Hollywood has turned into a cultural conveyor belt through superhero sequels and remakes, the Turkish media has entered the same cycle in the news junkyard. The junkyard in cinema consumes imagination, the junkyard in music consumes creativity and originality, and the junkyard in news consumes the capacity for thought. Political news is largely produced by turning agency texts into hundreds of copies, tabloid content is produced by artificially inflating social media posts, and economic news is produced with figures automated by AI. News turns into a shell that serves the algorithm rather than its content. The reader, meanwhile, is increasingly unable to distinguish between news and content. Just as a movie trailer looks “good enough,” AI news looks “accurate enough.” In the words of Walter Benjamin, news is now produced mechanically, losing its aura and uniqueness.

But the viewer/reader is not blind despite everything. Real news can still be distinguished. Carefully prepared investigative files and news sites in journalism are still noticed and followed. There are short, high-quality, and effective videos that do not turn originality into waste with AI production, and even if produced with AI, they appeal to the masses on social media with social realism. The problem is that these rare glimmers once again reveal how barren the landscape has become in the information ecosystem.

In summary, AI slop and slopaganda threaten not only today but also tomorrow. While culture begins to feed on its own waste, the information ecosystem resists not being suffocated in its own junkyard, but new sprouts are emerging from that same junkyard. The solution still lies in stubbornly defending originality and accuracy as a virtue. Therefore, value original, accurate, and socially conscious content creators and news sites.