Spotify Streaming Service Falls Short in Removing Antisemitic Content, Monitoring NGO Finds

The popular streaming service Spotify has fallen short in handling cases of antisemitic content that are reported to it, according to a new study published by the Fighting Online Antisemitism (FOA) NGO.

From mid-February to mid-March earlier this year, FOA volunteers — using keywords such as “Jew,” “Jewish,” “Hitler,” and “Nazi,” among others — uncovered 111 pieces of antisemitic content on Spotify, which is based in Stockholm, Sweden.

After the content was reported to Spotify, only 21% was removed or had its name changed, while 78% remained available.

“Antisemitic and hateful content can be found almost anywhere in the internet, so it is no surprising that this kind of content would be available on Spotify,” the FOA report said. “While great effort has been paid for the monitoring and flagging of hateful content in mainstream social networks, little attention has been given to the availability of such content on Spotify and other audio streaming services.”

“FOA urges Spotify to remove the flagged content as soon as possible, and to improve their automatic detection system of hateful content (names, symbols, pictures), and finally to simplify and extend (songs, albums, podcast episodes) the reporting procedure by users,” it added.

The report and its data can be read in full here.

To learn more about FOA, please visit: foantisemitism.org/en

A Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) interview with FOA Founder and Executive Director Tomer Aldubi can be read here.