SPOTUMDCOMM3512022
This backgrounder provides Spotify's response to censorship, a prominent issue that our artists and creators face. Here is how Spotify is trying to help our artists to continue to express themselves while fostering an environment where everyone feels welcome and supported.
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BACKGROUND - CENSORSHIP
Censorship has grown into a widespread issue outside of traditional print. It works as a means to limit creatives’ individual expression and artistic freedom. With the prominence of social media within the last two decades, censorship has taken an even larger presence online. Podcasts are a large target for censorship as they have become one of the most saturated mediums for internet users to express opinions. Spotify is the home to just under 4 million podcast shows. As a platform that facilitates individual creativity for artists and visionaries, our main goal is to make sure their freedom is preserved.
Spotify values the needs and concerns of each member of our community. Due to growing concerns of censorship we are evaluating new measures to implement within our platform. Therefore, with our new programs, we plan on making our artists and listeners key to the processes that take place before and after new content is posted. We want to make sure this process is as efficient and seamless as possible which is why we are taking the next coming weeks to gather focus groups and conduct case studies regarding the best way to create and implement new platform features that address freedom of speech, censorship, and misinformation.
To support our ongoing efforts at promoting the freedom of speech on our platform we will continue to listen and learn from our listeners and artists. Moving forward, we will implement a space for our Spotify community to report concerns of inappropriate censorship. This new feature will be available on the “more” tab of any song, album, or playlist as well as available on our website through a user form. Concerns about these latest changes to our user interface will be addressed through an FAQ on our website in our news release.