On Thursday, Spotify announced that it would begin refraining from promoting artists it considered to be "hate content" or "demonstrate hate behavior personally" on its selected playlists. This includes artist R. Kelly, who has been accused during the years of sexual misconduct. Pandora and Apple Music have now taken similar measures to de-emphasize the artists.
Pitchfork reported that Apple quietly began to remove R. Kelly from some of her selected playlists prior to Spotify's announcement in the light of renewed reports about her behavior by several women. However, other artists, such as XXXTentacion, which was also removed from Spotify playlists, remain on Apple's promoted playlists.
Similarly, Pandora has been working for "months" to update its policies on artists who have exhibited questionable behaviors, according to Blast . Like Spotify, it has removed Kelly from its playlists. The service said Blast that its "policy is not to actively promote artists with certain demonstrable behavioral, ethical or criminal problems". We address each of these scenarios on a case-by-case basis to ensure we address the components that are true to Pandora's principles without overdoing it and avoiding censorship. "
Spotify said The Verge earlier this week that R Kelly's music remains in the various services: the service simply will not promote it to users through their playlists, the same seems to be true for Apple and Pandora: companies do not extract their music from their catalogs, and simply They exercise some editorial control over who is on the curated lists, Spotify says they are working from the comments of users and with the help of groups like GLAAD, Anti-Defamation League and others, although it is not clear if Apple and Pandora are taking similar tactics, letting them work on a case-by-case basis to determine who receives the additional attention and who does not.
