Spotify users are seeing porn videos in search results

Some users see porn videos inserted into the search results for some popular artists on Spotify. To make matters worse, it is not very easy to report such videos.

Sunday, The Virgin highlighted a Reddit thread in which a user displayed a (NSFW link) porn videos appeared in Spotify search results for the artist MIA

The link appears to have been removed now, and we are unable to replicate the search result shown in the screenshot. But several commenters in the Reddit thread have confirmed seeing this or a similar result on Spotify.

“I reported another user for porn 4 days ago and it’s still up,” he wrote an editor. “Yes, they don’t really care, and now there is porn on my main page, and in my recent listening, so it’s just fantastic. And I can’t even delete it like we had to be able to,” he written another one.

If you’re wondering how the hell a NSFW video can 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 is not allowed:

“Content containing 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

• Advocate or glorify sexual themes related to rape, incest or beast”

The Verge contacted Spotify and received a response from a company representative, who said that particular NSFW videos that the outlet had provided were removed “due to the violation of our policies.”

Perhaps the most problematic thing about this issue is the fact that it is quite complicated to report. There is one report page on the Spotify websitebut there is no convenient button to report a problematic link on Spotify itself.