YouTube's "Altered or Synthetic Content" Disclosure, Explained

What actually requires disclosure

YouTube's policy is specifically about realism, not AI use in general:

• Requires disclosure — a realistic synthetic face or voice, digitally altering real footage of actual events or places, or generating a realistic scene that didn't happen.
• Doesn't require disclosure — clearly unrealistic content (animation, obvious special effects, beauty filters), or using generative AI for production assistance like scripting or captions.

Where the label appears

Most disclosed videos get a label in the expanded description. For sensitive categories — health, news, elections, finance — YouTube shows a more prominent label directly on the video player itself.

C2PA's role specifically

This is the detail most creators miss: if your video (or the image/audio assets inside it) carries valid Content Credentials indicating the entire piece was AI-made, YouTube will carry that disclosure forward automatically — you don't need to manually toggle anything, but you also can't avoid it by simply not disclosing, since the embedded manifest speaks for itself. YouTube may also show an "Info from" attribution naming the signing authority that validated the Content Credentials.

What happens if you don't disclose

For content that should have been disclosed, YouTube can apply the label itself without the creator's input, particularly when the content could confuse or mislead viewers. Consistent non-disclosure carries escalating risk, up to Partner Program suspension in serious or repeated cases.

Checking your assets before upload

If you're compositing AI-generated images or clips into a video and want to know exactly what provenance data they carry before YouTube reads it, AiEraser's View mode decodes the real C2PA manifest on individual image assets, and Remove mode strips it if that's your intent — though for video-level disclosure specifically, remember YouTube's own Studio toggle is the relevant mechanism, separate from an individual image's embedded metadata.