Spotify Announces New Hate Content Policy, Removes R. Kelly From Playlists

Spotify has announced a new hate content and hateful conduct policy for its music streaming service. As part of Spotify’s new policy, the streaming service will also stop actively promoting R. Kelly on its platform.

“When we are alerted to content that violates our policy, we may remove it (in consultation with rights holders) or refrain from promoting or playlisting it on our service. It’s important to us that our values are reflected in all the work that we do, whether it’s distribution, promotion, or content creation,” Spotify said in a blog post.

Spotify has partnered with rights advocacy groups including The Southern Poverty Law Center, The Anti-Defamation League, Color of Change, GLAAD, Muslim Advocates and the International Network Against Cyber Hate. The company also built what’s called Spotify AudioWatch, which is a monitoring tool that has the ability to identify content that has been flagged as hate content. Aside from monitoring hateful music, Spotify is also changing the way it handles content that’s not hateful, but is made by artists who are accused of hateful conduct in real life.

“We work with and support artists in different ways - we make their music available on Spotify and help connect them to new and existing fans, we program and promote their music, and we collaborate with them to create content,” the company explained. “While we don’t believe in censoring content because of an artist’s or creator’s behavior, we want our editorial decisions - what we choose to program - to reflect our values.”

When an artist has done something harmful or hateful, like an act of sexual violence, Spotify will change the way it supports or promotes that artist on its service. The first artist to be affected by this policy change is R&B singer R. Kelly. Spotify has confirmed to Billboard that the streaming service will no longer promote R. Kelly’s music or include any of them in the company’s flagship playlists. Starting today, users will no longer see R. Kelly in playlists like RapCaviar, Discover Weekly or New Music Friday. Other playlists that are based on moods or genres will also be affected by this change.

“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.”

For the past several years, R. Kelly has been accused by multiple women of sexual violence. The most recent allegations against R. Kelly arrived last week when two women stepped forward and told their stories to BuzzFeed News. Spotify’s new policy and its move to stop promoting R. Kelly’s music arrived just weeks after the Time’s Up movement started a campaign to boycott the R&B singer. Time’s Up is specifically targeting R. Kelly’s label, RCA, as well as Spotify, Apple Music and Ticketmaster, according to VentureBeat.