Etsy announced new restrictions on AI-generated content on its platform on Thursday, saying it threatens the integrity of its sellers’ work and exposes buyers to fraud.
Among the new stipulations:
- Templates, recipes, or any other item that requires a buyer to “put effort into a finished product” cannot be created using AI.
- Sellers must include at least one unedited photo of the actual item against an actual background.
- Bot-generated lists are prohibited.
AI-generated art can still be sold on the platform as long as merchants “take a clear role in what they create and are transparent about the process,” Etsy said in a note to sellers.
“Our marketplace only works when buyers and sellers trust each other,” James Ossman, Etsy’s vice president of customer operations, wrote in a blog post.
“Sellers need clear guidance and confidence that their creativity and expertise will be fairly represented; buyers need to understand what they’re buying and the human involvement behind it. We know we have work to do to uphold this standard on Etsy.”
Etsy is home to more than 5 million entrepreneurs, most of whom are women who run sole proprietorships from home, according to an annual report from the company.
This sets it apart from other large e-commerce platforms like Amazon and eBay, even though it represents only a fraction of those platforms’ revenue. By 2024, Etsy had sales of goods worth $10.9 billion, compared to approximately $75 billion for eBay and more than $700 billion for Amazon.
Some shoppers responded positively to Etsy’s announcement.
“I can’t explain how infuriating it was to buy a crochet pattern, only to open the PDF and realize it’s entirely AI-generated, doesn’t make sense, and definitely isn’t what the finished product should be,” creator Kara Lynne told X.
The advent of advanced AI has led to an explosion in AI-generated sales content – and a growing consumer backlash against what they see as AI neglect.
A recent social media trend among cafes and restaurants saw owners pledging not to use AI after blatant examples of AI-generated food images in the wild were shared on social media.
Major platforms are responding to growing discontent. Many, including Facebook and Instagram, are now working to add labels to images or videos created via AI.
Others, like LinkedIn, have added buttons for users to report AI-generated content.
Snap has banned entirely AI-generated content from its recommendation algorithm, while Spotify recently announced that it had removed 50 million AI-generated tracks from its platform.
Ossman said Etsy would add a LinkedIn-like feature that would make it easier for users to report listings with misleading AI images.
He also said Etsy would use technology to identify misleading images and fraudulent listings, with the aim of expanding removals of illicit listings in the coming months.
“We are actively working to answer the questions that AI raises for our market,” Ossman said in the post.
“This work is difficult and we don’t have all the answers today. But I think this is an important moment for Etsy and these first steps put us on the right path.”
Gn bussni
