Status: 01/31/2022 09:19 am
Spotify announces that all posts related to Covid-19 will in future be marked with a note about scientific information about the pandemic. The streaming service is responding to criticism from famous musicians and their departure from the platform.
In the face of growing criticism from artists, the Swedish streaming platform Spotify has announced that it will direct corona podcast listeners to scientific information from reliable sources about the pandemic. “We are working to add a content notice to every podcast episode that contains a discussion about Covid-19,” said Spotify CEO Daniel Ek.
This new initiative against false information will be implemented worldwide in the coming days, Ek said. Spotify is thus responding to its users, who have raised questions about the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable content on the platform in the past few days, it said.
Policies for Creators
Through the tech note, listeners should have “access to data-backed facts, up-to-date information being disseminated by scientists, doctors, academics and public health officials around the world, and links to trusted sources,” Ek explained. In addition, the company wants to publish guidelines for content creators, in which the platform defines more precisely what it considers “dangerous” and “misleading”.
“It has become clear to him that we have an obligation to do more to create balance and provide access to information that is widely accepted by the medical and scientific communities,” the Swedish billionaire said.
“Potentially Deadly Disinformation”
Previously, several artists, including rock musicians Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, had announced they would be pulling their music from Spotify. Young had all of his music removed from the streaming platform a few days ago. The 76-year-old had previously unsuccessfully asked Spotify to remove the podcast by controversial US comedian Joe Rogan. He and Mitchell accused Rogan of spreading false information about the corona virus. “Spotify has become a site of potentially deadly disinformation about Covid,” Young said.
Spotify wants to make all music and audio content accessible to its users, it said in a statement from the Swedish group. The company has a comprehensive content policy and has removed more than 20,000 Corona-related podcast episodes since the pandemic began.
Rogan is one of the most popular podcast hosts in the world. However, he is accused of, among other things, advising against vaccination of young people and promoting the treatment of Covid-19 with the deworming agent Ivermectin, which is mainly used in veterinary medicine. Last year, the 54-year-old signed an exclusive contract worth an estimated 100 million dollars, which corresponds to 89 million euros, with Spotify.