Spotify Buys Firm To Clean Up Content
As the Spotify music and podcast networks have grown, so have their meager attempts at content moderation. Earlier this year, Spotify faced a PR controversy owing to the role played by "The Joe Rogan Experience" in spreading vaccine-related misinformation.
In addition, Spotify has been red-flagged for other instances of podcast misinformation and streaming music content that promotes white supremacy, and homophobic and transphobic messages.
These trends could potentially be one of the reasons for this acquisition.
Spotify has acquired Dublin, Ireland-based Kinzen, a global leader in
protecting online communities from harmful content. Kinzen’s advanced
technology and deep expertise will help us more effectively deliver a
safe, enjoyable experience on our platform around the world.
The terms of the deal are yet to be shared.
Spotify’s current partnership with Kinzen, which began in 2020, has been critical to enhancing our approach to platform safety. The company’s unique technology is particularly suited for podcasting and audio formats, making its value to Spotify clear and unmatched. The technology the Kinzen team brings to Spotify combines machine learning and human expertise—backed by analysis from leading local academics and journalists—to analyze potential harmful content and hate speech in multiple languages and countries.
“We’ve long had an impactful and collaborative partnership with Kinzen and its exceptional team. Now, working together as one, we’ll be able to even further improve our ability to detect and address harmful content, and importantly, in a way that better considers local context,” said Dustee Jenkins, Spotify’s Global Head of Public Affairs. “This investment expands Spotify’s approach to platform safety, and underscores how seriously we take our commitment to creating a safe and enjoyable experience for creators and users.”
The acquisition of Kinzen will help Spotify better understand the abuse landscape and identify emerging threats on the platform.
“The combination of tools and expert insights is Kinzen’s unique strength that we see as essential to identifying emerging abuse trends in markets and moderating potentially dangerous content at scale,” said Sarah Hoyle, Spotify’s Head of Trust and Safety. “This expansion of our team, combined with the launch of our Safety Advisory Council, demonstrates the proactive approach we’re taking in this important space.”
Let's hope this acquisition can help Spotify get better control of its content and enable it to understand what's happening in its own sandbox.
Spotify To Cancel 10 Original Podcasts
The Hollywood Reporter has reported that Spotify plans to cancel 10 of its original podcasts from studios Parcast and Gimlet over the next month.
Gimlet’s How To Save A Planet, Crime Show and Every Little Thing and Parcast’s Medical Murders, Female Criminals, Crimes of Passion, Dictator, Mythology, Haunted Places and Urban Legends will wrap up in the next month.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the cuts are expected to impact under five percent of staff working on original podcasts at the audio giant’s in-house studios — which includes Parcast, Gimlet, The Ringer and Spotify Studios — while others working on the canceled shows will be reassigned to different projects.
Spotify currently has a slate of more than 500 original and exclusive shows produced across its four in-house studios.
Spotify first acquired Parcast and Gimlet in 2019 as part of its $1 billion expansion into podcasting. Staff at both Parcast and Gimlet are unionized with the Writers Guild of America, East. The Gimlet union ratified its first contract in March 2021 and Parcast followed a year later, ratifying its first contract in April of this year.
Last year, the Spotify generated $215 million, in podcast revenue but also saw a $110 million, negative impact on gross profit, according to Spotify.
Last month, Spotify also formally launched its audiobooks business in the U.S. with a library of 300,000 works for purchase and the company admits it is exploring additional business models, which could potentially include an ad-based model in the future.
Podnews Exclusive: Spotify "ghosts" podcast hosts
According to an exclusive story in last week's Podnews, the Spotify podcast launched in September 2020, Sex, Lies and DM Slides somehow appears to have relaunched with new hosts - without the knowledge of the podcasters who say they created the show.
Gizzi Erskine, one of the podcast's creators and original hosts, has posted on Instagram that the show, made by Spotify UK, “is being made again without us.”
“If Spotify don’t want to make it with us - then that’s fine, but DO NOT STEAL our format and name. WE created it (the format and name) in MY kitchen over a series of months. Spotify just paid for it to be made. I am absolutely up to my […] eyeballs at being exploited by the big corporations and money people. We are SO angry and upset”, she continues in the post, noting that the original shows have been removed.
Spotify didn’t respond to Podnews' request for comment.
Be careful, Joe Rogan. Spotify may try to save money by replacing him with a new host named Bo Hogan.
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