Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Spotify search results for popular artists have been surfacing porn videos for many users.
- The platform removed some flagged clips, but poor moderation is evident from how long the videos have remained online.
It looks like Spotify has a content moderation problem on its hands. Searches for popular artists on the music streaming platform have surfaced porn videos, as spotted by Reddit users and later verified by The Verge.
An NSFW screenshot posted yesterday on Reddit shows how search results for songs by British rapper and song producer M.I.A showed explicit videos of porn actress Mia Khalifa. While The Verge could not confirm the existence of this particular video, it found multiple other porn videos on Spotify’s “Video” tab.
One of the accounts posting these videos had been previously putting up erotic audio clips on Spotify. Another podcast account with a name made up of a long string of alphanumeric characters was also found to be publishing explicit videos since November.
A Spotify representative has confirmed that these videos existed but “have been removed” for violating the platform’s policies that forbid explicit content. However, Spotify hasn’t said anything about how these porn videos made it past its content moderation systems.
Spotify’s app does not have a button to report these videos for content moderation straightaway. Instead, one has to copy the video URL and visit the platform’s content reporting page to flag it.
