Spotify is reversing its recently instituted “hateful conduct” policy after backlash from users and artists.
On June 1, the music streamer published a blog post announcing it was ending the policy.
“Spotify recently shared a new policy around hate content and conduct,” post said. “And while we believe our intentions were good, the language was too vague, we created confusion and concern, and didn’t spend enough time getting input from our own team and key partners before sharing new guidelines.”
“We created concern that an allegation might affect artists’ chances of landing on a Spotify playlist and negatively impact their future,” the post continued. “Some artists even worried that mistakes made in their youth would be used against them. That’s not what Spotify is about.”
While the company’s “hateful conduct” policy has been reversed, its “hateful content” policy announced at the same time will still be in effect.
Spotify’s new policy received criticism from artists like 50 Cent and Kendrick Lamar, who threatened to remove his music from the service.
The streaming company introduced its “hate content and hateful conduct” policy three weeks ago, and according to Billboard, it resulted in the removal of R. Kelly from its playlists.
“We are removing R. Kelly’s music from all Spotify owned and operated playlists and algorithmic recommendations such as Discover Weekly,” Spotify said in a statement. “His music will still be available on the service, but Spotify will not actively promote it.
“We don’t censor content because of an artist’s or creator’s behaviour, but we want our editorial decisions — what we choose to program — to reflect our values,” the company added. “When an artist or creator does something that is especially harmful or hateful, it may affect the ways we work with or support that artist or creator.”
R. Kelly has been accused by multiple women of abuse.
According to Pitchfork, Spotify was also removing songs by rapper XXXtentacion, who was recently seen in a video allegedly hitting a woman, from their playlists.
The rapper responded to the news via a reporter on Twitter by questioning what Spotify will do about other artists accused or convicted of crimes.
50 Cent also chimed in on Twitter, calling Spotify’s decision “wrong,” noting that neither R. Kelly, nor XXXtentacion have been convicted of the alleged abuse.
“When we look at promotion, we look at issues around hateful conduct, where you have an artist or another creator who has done something off-platform that is so particularly out of line with our values, egregious, in a way that it becomes something that we don’t want to associate ourselves with,” said Spotify head of content and marketplace policy Jonathan Prince.
Spotify worked with several advisory groups including The Southern Poverty Law Center, The Anti-Defamation League, Color Of Change, Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), GLAAD, Muslim Advocates and the International Network Against Cyber Hate in order to develop the new policy.
“Spotify is a trendsetter,” said Rashid Shabazz, chief marketing and storytelling officer at Color of Change, “and we are encouraged and hopeful that the new policy will encourage others in the digital music industry to follow their example, and look to address content on their platforms that may foster hate, discrimination, and bias.”
