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Spotify's new "hateful content policy" is fucking retarded


Steve

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There's 2 components to it: -

 

1. Not promoting an artist and/or removing their music from the service if it contents "hate content".

 

2. Not promoting an artist and/or removing their music from the service if the music itself contains no "hate content", but the artist has demonstrated "hateful conduct" in some other way.

 

In the case of 2, they're willing to act as moral arbiters based solely on allegations. They've stopped promoting music by R. Kelly, for example, due to the allegations against him, even though he's never been convicted of anything he's been accused of.

 

Broadly speaking I have 2 major objections to this: -

 

1. I don't want a company like Spotify acting as a moral arbiter in the first place. I can do that for myself. Also, I certainly don't want them taking action against artists solely on allegations, regardless of my own personal opinions on whether any particular artist is guilty or not.

 

2. Once you start acting as a moral arbiter, you open yourself up to people saying "well, you've taken action against hate content X, but not Y, so you must think that Y is OK!!!", or "you've taken action against artists A and B, but not C, D, E, F, G, H etc. who have done the exact same things or worse!!!".

 

Some of this is already happening. Rapper XXXTentacion is one of the people affected by this and his team's response was to ask Spotify why no action has been taken against James Brown, Michael Jackson, Dr. Dre, Sid Vicious, Nelly, Seal and a whole bunch of other people.

 

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Yeah it's stupid. The whole point with Spotify in particular is you can quickly train it to not play certain artists yourself. I'll choose not to play Gary Glitter myself thanks. It's like some weird moral sanctions.

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You could still throw your money towards Jigga and his morally superior Tidal-Service...I mean his hard-drug-selling-hence-killing-people-career is over, so it's all save

 

...I haven't even started to consume music this way (streaming)

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People are already starting to jump on the "remove this person!" bandwagon.

 

A women's group called Ultraviolet wrote a letter to Spotify's CEO calling for the following people to be removed from Spotify playlists: -

  • Chris Brown
  • The Red Hot Chili Peppers
  • Nelly
  • Eminem
  • Don Henley
  • Steven Tyler
  • Tekashi 6ix9ine
  • Ted Nugent

Also, in the letter they mention that people should not be glorified if there are allegations of abuse against them. "Allegations". Nelly was accused of rape, for example, but his accuser refused to testify against him in court, therefore the case was dropped. I don't know if he committed rape or not, but if he's innocent in the eyes of the law then he shouldn't be treated differently to any other innocent person.

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Also, in the letter they mention that people should not be glorified if there are allegations of abuse against them. "Allegations". Nelly was accused of rape, for example, but his accuser refused to testify against him in court, therefore the case was dropped. I don't know if he committed rape or not, but if he's innocent in the eyes of the law then he shouldn't be treated differently to any other innocent person.

 

WRONG. Come on Steve, get with 2018. It's guilty until proven accused.

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People are already starting to jump on the "remove this person!" bandwagon.

 

A women's group called Ultraviolet wrote a letter to Spotify's CEO calling for the following people to be removed from Spotify playlists: -

  • Chris Brown
  • The Red Hot Chili Peppers
  • Nelly
  • Eminem
  • Don Henley
  • Steven Tyler
  • Tekashi 6ix9ine
  • Ted Nugent

Also, in the letter they mention that people should not be glorified if there are allegations of abuse against them. "Allegations". Nelly was accused of rape, for example, but his accuser refused to testify against him in court, therefore the case was dropped. I don't know if he committed rape or not, but if he's innocent in the eyes of the law then he shouldn't be treated differently to any other innocent person.

 

Nelly did rape the pop charts though...

 

Also, this list stands out for it's omissions more than it's inclusions. Steve Tyler but no Jimmy Page, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, etc, etc?

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  • 3 weeks later...

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