Despite Spotify's new policy on hateful content or behavior that eliminated the music of R. Kelly from the official playlists of the service, the musician's reproduction numbers have not been affected, according to The Associated Press . Before the policy change on May 10, his music received an average of 6,584,000 broadcasts per week on Spotify; in the week after the announcement, it received 6,676,000 transmissions.
Kelly's music was originally blacklisted from the playlists created by Spotify, but not from the service itself, due to numerous allegations of abuse and sexual exploitation against him over the years. A 2017 article BuzzFeed reported on an abusive sexual cult allegedly created by Kelly, where women said that he physically punished them for violating their "rules" and controlled all their movements. Her behavior received renewed attention as #MeToo gained strength, resulting in a #MuteRKelly campaign backed by numerous women of color in the Time & # 39; s Up movement.
After Spotify decided to downplay Kelly Do not actively promote it on your playlists, Apple Music and Pandora did the same. "While we do not believe in censoring content for the behavior of an artist or creator, we want our editorial decisions, what we choose to program, reflect our values," said a Spotify spokesperson.
The editorial decisions of these services inevitably provoked a round of internet intrigue and how this was "alarming" and "disturbing" – some of the writers who did not seem to understand that R. Kelly's music was still available in the catalog . But it seems that the new policy did not lead us all to slip on Slip n 'Slide towards the dystopian censorship, nor did it perceptibly dent the popularity of Kelly's music. Spotify and other streaming services have expressed their values, and users who wish to continue supporting Kelly despite their alleged abuses can continue to play "Ignition (Remix)" as many times as they wish, and for better or for worse, they are . [19659005]