LISA’s “SaWaDiKa” is closing in on another major YouTube milestone, but a new clarification from YouTube is pushing back against claims that the music video is being artificially promoted through paid advertising. The platform’s official @TeamYouTube account confirmed that the recommendations some users are seeing are driven by its algorithm, not an ad campaign purchased to boost the video.
The clarification came in response to a now-deleted post on X from a user who claimed that LISA’s “SaWaDiKa” was being pushed onto YouTube users through advertising. In its reply, YouTube explained that recommendations are personalized using signals including watch history, likes, dislikes, searches and broader activity on YouTube and Google.
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“Our recommendation system is designed to suggest content based on watch history, likes, dislikes, YouTube activity, and search history,” TeamYouTube wrote. The account also pointed users toward YouTube’s “Not interested” and “Don’t recommend channel” options, adding that changes to recommendations can take time.
That explanation is particularly relevant for “SaWaDiKa,” which has generated high levels of attention since its September 3 release. LISA’s first single from the upcoming PRESS PLAY EP recorded 70.8 million views during its first 24 hours, giving her the biggest YouTube music-video debut of 2026 and the second-largest 24-hour debut ever credited to a solo artist.
Only LISA’s own “LALISA” opened higher among soloists, with 73.6 million views in its first day in 2021. The two videos now give her the top two 24-hour soloist debuts in YouTube history, while “SaWaDiKa” also made LISA the first soloist to have multiple music videos surpass 70 million views within 24 hours.
The latest numbers show that the momentum has continued beyond launch day. “SaWaDiKa” is currently approaching 100 million YouTube views, sitting at around 95 million views and putting LISA within striking distance of another major milestone less than 48 hours after release.
The song’s performance has also extended to Spotify, where “SaWaDiKa” debuted at No. 13 on the Daily Global Spotify Chart with 2.787 million streams. It marked the biggest debut on the platform by a K-pop soloist in 2026, while its 466,000 U.S. streams placed it at No. 53 on the U.S. Spotify chart.
The YouTube recommendation system can make a video appear prominently on a user’s homepage even when that person does not follow or subscribe to the artist. A viewer who has searched for LISA, watched BLACKPINK content, interacted with similar videos or shown interest in related music can therefore receive “SaWaDiKa” as a recommendation without LISA or her team paying to place the video there.
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