Spotify Drops 'Hate Conduct' Policy After Industry Backlash

Spotify announced that it would no longer make content decisions based on musicians’ personal behavior.

The announcement made on Friday is a reversal of its recent policy on artists’ “hateful conduct” that affected the likes of R. Kelly and XXXTentacion. The platform had already implemented the policy, removing the songs of both artists from its playlists or recommended content. 

“We don’t aim to play judge and jury,” Spotify said in a statement. “Across all genres, our role is not to regulate artists. Therefore, we are moving away from implementing a policy around artist conduct.”

Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek also expressed regret at how his company had handled the move earlier in the week: “I think we rolled this out wrong and could have done a much better job.”

According to Bloomberg News, there was an immediate backlash within the music industry over Spotify’s policy. Representatives for musicians including Kendrick Lamar had threatened to pull their music from Spotify if the policy stayed in place.

“We created concern that an allegation might affect artists’ chances of landing on a Spotify playlist and negatively impact their future,” Spotify said Friday. “Some artists even worried that mistakes made in their youth would be used against them.”