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Spotify’s Unintended Explicit Content Discovery Sparks Concern

A recent incident involving a Reddit user highlighted an unexpected discovery on Spotify’s platform. The user shared a screenshot showing a pornographic video appearing among the search results for the music artist M.I.A. While the explicit video didn’t surface in our own searches, further exploration through the “Video” tab uncovered similar inappropriate content.

Among the accounts responsible for the explicit videos, one has been known for years to produce erotic audio yet recently began adding sexually graphic videos to its repertoire. Another account, characterized by a lengthy string of alphanumeric characters, has been posting nonsensical yet explicit videos under the guise of a podcast format since mid-November.

In response to the findings, Spotify’s representative Laura Batey informed The Verge that the flagged examples have been removed due to violations of the platform’s content policies. Specifically, these policies prohibit any content that includes sexually explicit material, as outlined on their content guidelines. We have reached out to Spotify for further clarification regarding how these videos were able to evade their moderation protocols and will share updates if they provide additional insights.

The videos uncovered appear to fall within the category of unmonitored podcast uploads. However, reporting such content is not straightforward given the app’s design. Currently, users wishing to report violations must copy the respective content’s URL and navigate to a separate reporting webpage to address their concerns.

Source
www.theverge.com