itch.io says it deleted terabytes of AI slop—and is bringing No AI to search
The indie marketplace's November 3 posts pair a cleanup claim with wider disclosure filtering, while its rules continue to target spam and inaccurate labeling.
itch.io is pushing back against AI spam with deletion and discovery controls. Its public account said on November 3 at 03:23 UTC: “Just deleted a couple terabytes of ai slop.” At 04:41 UTC, it announced that generative-AI disclosure filtering was being added to more areas, including search results.
The deletion volume is the marketplace’s own statement, not an independently audited storage total or a count of games removed. The accompanying search screenshot shows a No AI tag selected for game-asset results.
A filter and a content-quality rule
The published creator guidelines say automated systems should not be used to mass-produce product pages. They describe predominantly automated projects with minimal human intervention, uncurated generated material and repeated variants as examples that may be removed from browse and search.
Those guidelines also ask creators to accurately disclose generative-AI materials through the project’s AI Disclosure section. They state that disclosure is strictly enforced for game assets, soundtracks, physical games, comics and books, with failure potentially leading to delisting. Traditional game logic such as NPC pathfinding and procedural level generation is distinguished from generative AI in the policy.
These are meaningful distinctions for creators: delisting from discovery is different from deleting hosted material, and the rules do not announce a blanket ban on every AI-assisted project. The documentation says useful or interesting generated content can have a place if it adds substantial value and is described accurately.
Bulk spam is only part of the pressure
In a November 2 reply, itch.io said that the bulk-upload behavior being discussed violated its guidelines and was actively deindexed. But it also said its analysis attributed the increase in its game-page graph to first-time uploaders, rather than those bulk uploaders.
Kotaku’s November 3 report connects the cleanup and expanded filtering to that wider upload surge. The practical change is about what people can find and exclude, alongside enforcement against spam. The original posts and policies do not establish how completely the cleanup catches undisclosed AI content, or whether filtering will resolve the discovery problem.