Spotify Backtracks on Policy Concerning Artist's Off-Platform Conduct, Saying It Won't 'Play Judge and Jury'
It's a move many content moderation professionals said made sense, as it could have caused financial and legal issues for the company.
June 01, 2018 at 07:47 PM
2 minute read
Spotify app. Photo: Shutterstock reversed that decision "Even if you think Spotify should be making content moderation decisions based on artists' off-platform conduct, it's pretty clear that they lack in-house competence and capacity to make fair judgments about that conduct," said Annemarie Bridy, professor of law and affiliate scholar at the Stanford University Center for Internet and Society, in an email. "It would be one thing for them to rely on court judgments, but it's very much another for them to take on the role of adjudicator," she continued. "Moderating on-platform speech is something Spotify can do in a way that gives artists reasonable due process. They can't credibly meet that standard for moderation based on off-platform conduct. And I think, to their credit, they realized that pretty quickly." then asked he most obvious legal risk is if Spotify [is seen as] falsely accusing someone of committing sexual abuse, if they were to issue a statement that they blocked an artist because of sexual abuse allegations and it turns out that all of that is wrong, then Spotify is on the hook," Goldman said. "The conduct piece of the policy was a pretty obvious misstep," Bridy said. "But the moderation of hate content on the platform is something that makes complete sense [with] respect to what their business is and what they do. Again: moderating content, yes. Moderating off-platform behavior, no."
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