Spotify Brings Back Political Ads After Suspending Them in 2020

In 2020, Spotify suspended all political advertisements from the platform surrounding that yr’s election cycle amid widespread criticism of the web unfold of misinformation. At the time, Spotify launched an announcement promising to place a greater vetting course of into place earlier than they create political advertisements again. The firm confirmed this week that political advertisements are slowly returning to the digital streaming platform, Protocol reports. 

“Following our pause of political ads in early 2020, we have spent the past two years strengthening and enhancing our processes, systems and tools to responsibly validate and review this content,” a Spotify spokesperson stated in an announcement. “We are now beginning to sell select political advertisements in opted-in third-party podcasts via the Spotify Audience Network in the U.S.”

The firm reportedly despatched out an inner e-mail claiming that it’s going to not settle for advertisements from issue-based teams, will solely host advertisements from recognized candidates, and that the advertisements won’t run between songs streaming on the free subscription tier.

At the beginning of this yr, Neil Young asked for his music to be removed from Spotify in protest of Joe Rogan’s platform unique podcast. He accused the streaming platform of “spreading fake information about vaccines—potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them.” His music was swiftly taken off the platform, and different artists adopted swimsuit in requesting their respective catalogs’ removals from Spotify. While CEO Daniel Ek condemned Rogan’s use of racist slurs, the corporate nonetheless stands by Joe Rogan.