© Michael Loccisano/Getty Images R. Kelly
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.
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.
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.”
