Spotify users are seeing porn videos in search results
Some users are seeing porn videos snuck into search results for some popular artists on Spotify. To make matters worse, it's not very easy to report such videos.
On Sunday, The Verge highlighted a Reddit thread in which a user showed a (link NSFW) porn video appearing in Spotify search results for artist M.I.A.
The link appears to have been removed now, and we couldn't replicate the search result shown in the screenshot. But several commenters in the Reddit thread confirmed seeing this or a similar result on Spotify.
"I reported another user for porn 4 days ago and it's still up," wrote one redditor. "Yeah they just don't really care, and now there's porn on my main page, and on my recently listened, so that's just great. And I can't even remove it like we used to be able to," wrote another.
If you're wondering how the heck can a NSFW video even be uploaded to Spotify, the answer is podcasts, which aren't moderated before uploading.
Spotify does not allow sexually explicit material on the platform. From the company's rules on what's not allowed:
"Content that contains sexually explicit material includes, but may not be limited to:
Pornography or visual depictions of genitalia or nudity presented for the purpose of sexual gratification
Advocating or glorifying sexual themes related to rape, incest, or beastiality"
The Verge contacted Spotify and received a reply from a company representative, who said that the particular NSFW videos the outlet had provided were taken down "due to violation of our policies."
Perhaps the most problematic thing about this issue is the fact that it's fairly complicated to report it. There is a report page on Spotify's website, but there's no convenient button to report a troublesome link on Spotify itself.