Show HN: Weedout – Safari extension that hides YouTube AI-labeled videos

ssernikk · 2026-09-02T08:28:36.000000Z

I love this concept, but use Firefox, so I ported it:

https://github.com/kacperwyczawski/herbisight (herbisight -> herbicide -> weeds, you know)

I've just submitted it to AMO for review (in the meantime, you can load extension/ via about:debugging). Will update the repo with the store link once approved!

tartoran · 2026-09-02T05:00:42.000000Z

This is great and hope it'll be compatible with more and more browsers.

This should be done by youtube themselves. It's so simple for them to label AI generated content so people can either look for it or avoid it but they won't do it. I'm not sure how they profit from AI gen videos over regular videos...

I was looking for a setting to turn off Youtube Shorts but there's no way to do it, it's like that by design, Youtube want to shove those in your face so you click on it, even if by accident. Luckily I found a free app to do it (IOS). I absolutely appreciate the effort people put into fighting these companies back.

ssernikk · 2026-09-02T08:30:40.000000Z

> This is great and hope it'll be compatible with more and more browsers.

I agree! Just ported it to Firefox, see my other comment here: https://hackernews.hn/item?id=49533429

Definitely gonna use it myself.

NotErnie · 2026-09-02T08:02:54.000000Z

In the mobile app you can go to Settings > Time Management > Daily Limits > Shorts feed limit and set it to 0 minutes. It removes all shorts from your home feed.

If you click on a short, or the shorts tab you see "you reached your Shorts feed limit".

And if you click on the subcriptions tab theres only one section of shorts at the top and they don't show up again when you scroll down.

tatoalo · 2026-09-02T07:36:11.000000Z

> I was looking for a setting to turn off Youtube Shorts

I put out shortless [0] for the very same reason...I just hate them. This works only on Safari, but I stopped using the native app altogether a long time ago, so it wasn't that big of a jump for me :)

[0]: https://shortless.app

ultrarunner · 2026-09-02T05:09:16.000000Z

Shouldn't their presumably unlimited access to Gemini models enable them to implement things like this quickly and easily?

afavour · 2026-09-02T07:41:43.000000Z

Yes but if it’ll lower overall video minutes viewed it’ll never make it into production.

MarioMan · 2026-09-02T03:04:17.000000Z

This is great. Having the option to choose whether or not to see AI content was the first thing I hoped they'd add a filter for when it was first introduced.

Just for kicks, I inverted the filter in a TamperMoneky script that only keeps the AI-generated content: https://gist.github.com/SMarioMan/32c959d79035cb421df1c69c06...

consumer451 · 2026-09-02T02:03:26.000000Z

My only concern is that I have seen legit videos by creators on the platform for many years, with the tiny "AI (i)" label below the video. I have seen this even on channels that are not faceless.

You would think if anyone could get this right, it would be Google/YouTube, but apparently not.

onion2k · 2026-09-02T05:43:20.000000Z

I have seen this even on channels that are not faceless.

The AI logo doesn't mean "entirely made with AI". It means "significant use of AI detected". If someone uses AI to modify the background of their video (say, to remove a detail) it'll get the label.

Frannky · 2026-09-02T06:36:15.000000Z

I go on YouTube to watch humans talking, nature and music videos and get an insane amount of AI reviews, AI videos, and AI songs. What I find weird is how they end up at the top. Are people actually watching them, which is why they’re ranked so high? Or is the YouTube algorithm just being exploited? Fortunately, there are keywords that still bring back humans, but it’s so annoying.

Foobar8568 · 2026-09-02T06:53:58.000000Z

Take a look at the most viewed videos... It's gross.

Basically 90% are just crap done by computers (pre AI), targeting preschoolers.

vist_orn · 2026-09-02T07:50:02.000000Z

Finally, a way to reclaim my YouTube feed from the AI sludge. Been scrolling past too much uncanny valley lately.

ungreased0675 · 2026-09-02T00:29:15.000000Z

I’d love a small local model that detects AI voices and blocks the content.

Suppafly · 2026-09-02T05:52:24.000000Z

I'm not even sure you'd need AI for that, there are only like 3 voices that are ever used.

haul_up · 2026-09-02T07:15:49.000000Z

Been waiting for something like this; YouTube's AI detection is wildly inaccurate and just clutters the feed. Installing immediately.

Tajnymag · 2026-09-02T07:36:12.000000Z

The extension relies on YouTube's AI detection, so it won't be any more accurate.

karim79 · 2026-09-02T01:39:59.000000Z

My pet peeve is the AI generated voices. I absolutely love the cosmology-astrophysics-space stuff. And it can be any crap if it's correct enough and entertaining enough and passive enough that I can fall asleep to it.

But once I detect that the voiceover is AI generated that shit get instablocked forever. It's an instant put-off. Do all the visuals you want with AI as long as they are reasonable but when a human (AI) voice starts to fuck with the way a word has been presented in a particular context then it just makes me want to hate everything I won't mention any names <cough> elevenlabs.

mrweasel · 2026-09-02T06:34:52.000000Z

Many content creators on YouTube may not have English as their first language, so they turn to AI to do the voice over. The thing is, I'd rather listen to broken English read by a human than an AI voice over. The AI voices are off putting and tiresome. It's somehow hurts my brain less trying to process a Chinese person speak bad English. Alternatively for something like YouTube, add subtitles and just speak your own language is much more comfortable than the AI voice-overs.

shoobiedoo · 2026-09-02T07:39:05.000000Z

This is especially common in Japan now. I was looking for an audio documentary of the crusades and half of them were done in squeaky anime AI voices

userbinator · 2026-09-02T05:23:05.000000Z

There are tons of human-generated videos on YouTube that aren't worth watching either, and usually can be identified by "screamer" thumbnails and vapid clickbaity titles. I don't think we need to amplify another divisive topic.

yes1would · 2026-09-02T05:33:26.000000Z

[flagged]

userbinator · 2026-09-02T05:34:33.000000Z

...I guess I've wandered into the echo-chamber for the two-minutes-AI-hate?

Flagged and moved on.

pferde · 2026-09-02T05:46:06.000000Z

Oh not at all, the AI hate is actually 24x7, and deservedly so.

yes1would · 2026-09-02T06:37:33.000000Z

Apparently not moved on enough, clanker.

kenanfyi · 2026-09-02T06:53:32.000000Z

It's funny the website is generated with AI. I'm kind of sure that the code as well.

chukar · 2026-09-02T08:12:17.000000Z

Honestly, I've noticed a strange uptick in those videos. This sounds like a perfect solution to clean up the experience.

thatmf · 2026-09-01T22:38:44.000000Z

I wish I had this but for every website and media surface

masteranza · 2026-09-01T22:40:42.000000Z

Well, AI flags this content so it's an easy target without heuristics - that's why I've started there.

embedding-shape · 2026-09-01T23:11:32.000000Z

Ironically, if you had this for every website, including GitHub and HN, you wouldn't have seen this HN submission / repository :)

masteranza · 2026-09-01T23:18:16.000000Z

That's also true, you gotta fight fire with fire :)

mikeweiss · 2026-09-02T00:32:30.000000Z

Need the EU, or California or some other large jurisdiction to create a law requiring identifying labels on all AI content

lukeasch21 · 2026-09-01T23:28:47.000000Z

This is great, but why start with Safari and not a cross platform browser? Is there something native here that can't be done otherwise or is it just personal preference?

masteranza · 2026-09-01T23:48:34.000000Z

There's plenty of AI blocking Chrome extensions already, however I prefer Safari for personal stuff (and hence YouTube too) and use Brave for Google-gated work related stuff.

Schnitz · 2026-09-02T00:14:54.000000Z

I’ve found that the AI label doesn’t necessarily mean AI slop, it just means there’s a non zero amount of AI in the video. I want to avoid AI slop but not all videos that have an AI title screen or whatever.

conmod278 · 2026-09-02T05:37:42.000000Z

People think all AI is bad. AI in the hands of expert can create wonders. Take a look below.

Oneiric | AI Sci-Fi Short Film | Higgsfield Originals (2026)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAg9iDh9_BQ

AI is replacing me by kold

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGoFUxCmBdA

mechazawa · 2026-09-02T07:21:45.000000Z

Yeah it's pretty meaningless to see the ai label below videos. Lots of obvious AI shorts and videos are unlabeled yet other videos are labeled as fully generated with AI when they are obviously not [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3Pdf8iRw5E

f3408fh · 2026-09-02T01:17:37.000000Z

Yep, it's super useless. The label is so general. Was AI used for one image in the 10 minute video? Is the voiceover AI? Is the entirety of it generated with AI? No way to know.

AmazingEveryDay · 2026-09-02T02:17:49.000000Z

Agreed. I think instead of "AI or not", that something more nuanced is needed - perhaps a rating system inspired by the MPAA's (g, pg, pg-13 r, nc-17, x) that is used for movies.

arcfour · 2026-09-02T02:36:08.000000Z

Yeah, I make song remixes in the style of a particular video game and while the music is completely human written (by me), I'll often have AI generated or edit the "cover art" for me so people have something to look at/chuckle at.

These videos are still marked as AI, and fairly so; however I don't think that means people should want them hidden :-(

PixelForg · 2026-09-02T04:57:29.000000Z

> however I don't think that means people should want them hidden :-(

Sorry but no, even if the music is great I don't want to hear it if the cover was AI generated, at this point I'd happily accept even a crudely drawn cover because it is human :)

arcfour · 2026-09-02T06:04:51.000000Z

What's the difference between me pasting a face over a body in GIMP manually and me prompting an LLM to make the same edit, faster, and better than I would by hand? They aren't particularly high-effort. The artwork isn't really the point, but I can't just upload a black video...

Planktonne · 2026-09-02T08:18:04.000000Z

AI-generated anything sends a message of 'I do not care about quality'. You might feel that that's unfair, but it's the impression you're making on a large segment of your potential audience.

tadfisher · 2026-09-02T00:55:12.000000Z

Now that the AI label exists, the creators using AI for an intro graphic or background music are probably going to stop using it.

Muskwalker · 2026-09-02T03:04:34.000000Z

For a creator posting a video, Google gives specific guidelines on whether to tag it as AI:

"Was AI used to generate or edit your content in any of the following ways?

- Makes a real person appear to say or do something they didn’t say or do

- Alters footage of a real event or place

- Generates a realistic-looking scene that didn’t actually occur

To follow YouTube’s policy, you’re required to tell us about your use of AI. This includes realistic sounds or visuals made or edited with AI. [View examples](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/14328491)"

So oddly an intro graphic only has to be tagged as AI if it shows a real/realistic person, place, or event, but (per the examples page) apparently any AI-generated music counts.

masteranza · 2026-09-02T05:38:18.000000Z

If so, that’s indeed a real concern...

altairprime · 2026-09-02T04:28:08.000000Z

Google’s been pushing creators to use AI thumbnails more heavily since right around the EU deadline for labeling, presumably in the hopes of saturating the label so that everyone burns out and eats their slop quietly.

ranger_danger · 2026-09-01T22:56:16.000000Z

You can charge money for browser extensions? And people pay for them?

I'm in the wrong business.

masteranza · 2026-09-01T22:58:56.000000Z

It's free on GitHub for anyone to build, use or fork. I've built it for myself, but going through App Store submissions took me 2x the time, hence the price.

0x1d7 · 2026-09-02T01:01:39.000000Z

They require signing which is $100/year.

https://support.apple.com/guide/security/app-code-signing-pr...

sshussain270 · 2026-09-02T07:39:06.000000Z

Ah! This is useful!

singpolyma3 · 2026-09-01T22:51:40.000000Z

I'm more concerned about the stuff that is fraudulent then possibly legit stuff explicitly labelled as AI

masteranza · 2026-09-01T22:57:35.000000Z

True, but that's a way harder problem to solve. For me what was important was reducing the noise as much as possible as fast as possible consistently. Youtube algorithms has been pervasive enough that anything that moves the scale down even a little bit was worth the effort.

vivzkestrel · 2026-09-02T04:43:48.000000Z

- stupid question: how does this sort of thing work?

- like how do you actually determine if a video was AI made or not?

- what is the algorithm used? what is the threshold for a video to be considered slop?

- what do you do? download the videos with yt-dlp split them into frames and run each frame by what?

ffsm8 · 2026-09-02T04:57:21.000000Z

From the pitch itself

> Weedout is a $1.99 Safari extension for macOS that removes videos YouTube labels “Made with AI”

So no, none of that. Blows my mind if someone pays for that

negura · 2026-09-02T03:32:29.000000Z

This is what they mean when they say AI amplifies inequality. If you're technically competent, you just write yourself an extension to block the slop spam, or at least pay to install one. So in the end it's rotting much more the brains of the least prepared.

GaryBluto · 2026-09-02T08:12:14.000000Z

Considering the design and language used on the extension's website I wouldn't doubt it could've been made by someone technically unskilled.

dathinab · 2026-09-02T00:17:46.000000Z

one problem is that algorithms(1) to detect AI generated content are surprisingly bad

like non-AI generated animated/cartoon content is much more likely to be mistakenly labeled as AI then some somewhat realistic "looking" but for a human still clearly AI slop content

some platforms (TickTock) seem to label anything as fully AI generated iff the metadata indicates certain tools like Adobe Illustrator are used, independent on how it was been used

---

(1): If that tool is "ask an AI" then its not surprising at all. It's content which AI tried to make look as realistic as possible, the same (and potentially similar) AI will see it as "as realistic as possible"...

gregjw · 2026-09-01T23:57:46.000000Z

Safari? Of all browsers? Why not start with Chromium?

flanked-evergl · 2026-09-02T08:00:10.000000Z

YouTube needs a way to report mislabelled AI videos, and actually the "Made with AI" label is a bit misleading. I don't mind if it uses some AI, what I don't want is AI slop, and that can only really be reported by users.

Same with Instagram, they need a way to report AI.