Earlier this week, Digital Music News posted an article titled "I Just Found 37 Hate Bands On Spotify." The article listed 37 bands that were deemed hate bands that spewed white supremacy in their music by the Southern Poverty Law Centre. After finding these bands, the SPLC had pushed their campaign towards removing these groups off of iTunes. While they succeeded, times have changed since the campaign in 2014. Music has shifted in a new direction where people no longer download music but stream it instead.
The article that was posted by Digital Music News has since caught the attention of Spotify and today, they announced that they will be taking the appropriate actions in reviewing and removing any music on their platform that is considered "hate music." In a statement to Billboard, the streaming service has stated that they will be taking immediate action in removing content that incites hate. They said that they are glad to have been alerted on the topic, they've removed many of those bands and are currently reviewing the remainder of those identified. The spokesperson for Spotify has also said "illegal content or material that favors hatred or incites violence against race, religion, sexuality or the like is not tolerated by us."
Spotify's spokesperson also told them that while many of the content comes from record labels who are responsible for the content that they put up onto the streaming platform, Spotify is doing all they can right now to continue to remove these groups from Spotify.
The new steps that streaming services are putting forth to ban hate bands also has some conflicts that they have to deal with. While they ban these groups, the right of freedom of speech also influences what they can and can't have uploaded onto their library.
In addition to these new steps that Spotify is taking right now, they are also pushing a new Spotify playlist called "Patriotic Passion" that includes Nas, Khalid, Jimi Hendrix, Lady Gaga, James Brown and more. The spokesperson also said that this playlist is "a soundtrack to an America worth fighting for."
