In a report from Billboard, Spotify has recently announced that they have removed a bunch of music from its platform that promotes hate. These musical acts have been flagged as a “hate band” by the Southern Poverty Law Center three years ago, and it looks like they will have to turn to other platforms if they want to continue making money from their music.
It seems like these groups were brought to Spotify’s attention by Digital Music News who posted a report titled, “I Just Found 27 White Supremacist Hate bands On Spotify.” According to Spotify, they claim that record companies and aggregators are “first hand responsible” for the content they upload, but they will take action as soon as it is brought to their attention.
In a statement provided by a Spotify spokeswoman, “Spotify takes immediate action to remove any such material as soon as it has been brought to our attention. We are glad to have been alerted to this content – and have already removed many of the bands identified today, whilst urgently reviewing the remainder.” This move is in line with what other tech companies are also doing, such as Apple and PayPal who have moved to remove support of their services from hate websites.