Spotify Removes R. Kelly Music From Its Playlists As Part of New Hate Content & Hateful Conduct Policy: Exclusive
Spotify Removes R. Kelly Music From Its Playlists As Part
of New Hate Content & Hateful Conduct Policy: Exclusive
5/10/2018 by Dan Rys
Beginning today (May 10), Spotify users will no longer be
able to find R. Kelly's music on any of the streaming service's editorial or
algorithmic playlists. Under the terms of a new public hate content and hateful
conduct policy Spotify is putting into effect, the company will no longer
promote the R&B singer's music in any way, removing his songs from flagship
playlists like RapCaviar, Discover Weekly or New Music Friday, for example, as
well as its other genre- or mood-based playlists.
"We are removing R. Kelly’s music from all Spotify
owned and operated playlists and algorithmic recommendations such as Discover
Weekly," Spotify told Billboard in a statement. "His music will still
be available on the service, but Spotify will not actively promote it. We don’t
censor content because of an artist’s or creator’s behavior, but we want our
editorial decisions -- what we choose to program -- to reflect our values. When
an artist or creator does something that is especially harmful or hateful, it
may affect the ways we work with or support that artist or creator."
Over the past several years, Kelly has been accused by
multiple women of sexual violence, coercion and running a "sex cult,"
including two additional women who came forward to Buzzfeed this week. Though
he has never been convicted of a crime, he has come under increasing scrutiny
over the past several weeks, particularly with the launch of the #MuteRKelly
movement at the end of April. Kelly has vociferously defended himself, saying
those accusing him are an “attempt to distort my character and to destroy my
legacy." And while RCA Records has thus far not dropped Kelly from his
recording contract, Spotify has distanced itself from promoting his music.
"When we look at promotion, we look at issues around
hateful conduct, where you have an artist or another creator who has done
something off-platform that is so particularly out of line with our values,
egregious, in a way that it becomes something that we don't want to associate
ourselves with," Jonathan Prince, Spotify's vp/head of content and
marketplace policy, tells Billboard. "So we've decided that in some
circumstances, we may choose to not work with that artist or their content in
the same way -- to not program it, to not playlist it, to not do artist
marketing campaigns with that artist."
Kelly is the only artist that Spotify specifically
acknowledged would fall under this new public policy, though others may also be
affected. Later on Thursday, Billboard was able to confirm that controversial
rapper XXXTentacion had also been removed from playlists, namely the highly
influential RapCaviar.
The hateful conduct provision is one part of the new
policy, which also includes a provision for hate content. The company is making
a point to acknowledge there are different cultural standards as to what could
be considered offensive in different regions around the globe -- Spotify is
available in more than 50 countries worldwide -- but worked together with
several advocacy groups to determine its definition of hate content, including
The Southern Poverty Law Center, The Anti-Defamation League, Color Of Change,
Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), GLAAD, Muslim Advocates and the
International Network Against Cyber Hate.
"Hate content is content that expressly and
principally promotes, advocates, or incites hatred or violence against a group
or individual based on characteristics, including, race, religion, gender
identity, sex, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, veteran status, or
disability," the policy reads. "When we are alerted to content that
violates our policy, we may remove it (in consultation with rights holders) or
refrain from promoting or manually programming it on our service."
The company acknowledges that, with more than 35 million
tracks on its service, it cannot police everything, and has introduced a
three-pronged reporting system for hate content or hateful conduct, including
internal monitoring from its teams already in place; consultations with expert
partners, such as the advocacy groups it worked with to develop the policy; and
user comments and reports. The company also says it has created a monitoring
tool called Spotify AudioWatch to help it screen for and flag hate content.
The new guidelines for Spotify arrive not just in the
midst of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements -- which helped springboard the
#MuteRKelly initiative -- but also as YouTube, another music streaming service
with a widely-used free tier and a massive user base, has had to deal with
extensive criticism and an advertiser backlash revolving around its users
uploading hateful content to its platform. YouTube has announced that it is
working on ways to curb hate speech and content, and revealed a new filter to
screen for "hate" videos and flag them for takedown, and to not place
advertisements against them.
Spotify Removes Hate Music as Streaming Companies
Struggle to Police Their Tunes
It's also not the first time Spotify has addressed hate
content on its platform; Prince acknowledges that the company has had internal
policies to address such content for years, and last August the company
announced it had removed an array of white supremacist content from its
catalog.
"We are pleased to be in partnership with Spotify,
in identifying and setting standards to ensure content on their platform
continues to allow for artistic and creative freedom and expression, while
ensuring the most inclusive and just world we can live in," said Rashid
Shabazz, chief marketing and storytelling officer at Color of Change, which
worked with Spotify on its policy, in a statement to Billboard. "Spotify
is a trendsetter, and we are encouraged and hopeful that the new policy will
encourage others in the digital music industry to follow their example, and
look to address content on their platforms that may foster hate, discrimination
and bias."
"I think that, frankly, all of us have become
increasingly aware of the responsibility that we have when we make
recommendations about content, and particularly when we're doing that in a way
that may send signals to our audience about what we believe and what we
value," Prince tells Billboard. "So we thought it was really past
time for us to take a really over-arching look at that. These are really
complicated issues and this is our first iteration of a really comprehensive
policy. We're going to continue to try to evolve our approach to these
things."
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