Spotify CEO Daniel Ek spoke on a number of topics at this years Code Conference regarding his music streaming service. During the session, he took responsibility for the controversial and messy rollout for the company’s recently launched Hate Content and Hateful Conduct policy, which banned artists such as R. Kelly and XXXTENTACION. “We rolled this out wrong and could have done a much better job,” stated Ek. “The whole goal with this was to make sure that we didn’t have hate speech. It was never about punishing one individual artist or even naming one individual artist.” Earlier this month, Spotify announced it wouldn’t be supporting artists whose content or behavior could be deemed “hateful” on editorial or algorithmic playlists. XXXTENTACION and R. Kelly became the most visible artists affected by the policy, although the company later rescinded its decision on XXXTENTACION. The policy still exists on Spotify’s website, however Ek admits that it’s too ambiguous and will undergo revisions.
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