Sunday 13 February 2022

Spotify's Continuing Spot of Bother?

You might have thought that music streaming company, Spotify, would now be a bit more careful. Their adoption of the Joe Rogan podcast, with its contentious treatment of issues around the Covid19 pandemic and vaccination, resulted in Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and a few others, removing their music from Spotify's site. The musicians didn't seem at all mollified by Spotify's claim that, contentious Rogan material (he's not just iffy on vaccines), would carry warnings for users. It now appears that 'songs', claiming that Covid19 is fake and describing vaccines as 'poison', are actively being promoted to Spotify users in playlists (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/feb/13/dont-take-the-damn-thing-how-spotify-playlists-push-dangerous-anti-vaccine-tunes). The playlists are generated by Spotify's content recommendation engine and directed to anyone who has shown an interest in Covid19 issues. Some songs explicitly encourage people not to get vaccinated. The playlists also direct folk to songs about other conspiracy 'theories' (pedant's corner: these are actually 'hypotheses' as they do not meet with universal support). One example is rapper, 'Remeece', who has serenaded pupils outside the gates of English primary and secondary schools, with his 'Don't Tek Di Vaccine'. Less than helpful?

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