Streaming music services have a problem with racist material
It’s insanely easy to upload your music to a streaming music service–as it should be. You want that to be as frictionless as possible for every musician on the planet. The problem is that it’s easy for racist material to end up on the platforms, too.
This has long been an issue for all the streaming companies. Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, and all the rest–each with access to over 65 million songs–are playing a game of Whack-A-Mole when it comes to purging their libraries of this material, much of which is linked to white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups.
Like what? According to a BBC report, there are plenty of songs “glorifying Aryan nations,” songs that celebrate the Holocaust, National Socialist Black Metal (Nazi stuff), and material linked to various hate groups. Some song titles have been altered (removing words like “Aryan” and “white”) to escape censorship.
Here’s a sample of this filth:
So wake from your bed, and raise your head
Aryan child, listen to what is said
So rise your hand and learn to love your land
For the white revolution needs your uncorrupted hand.
Since the BBC reported on the situation, the streaming services have again gone through their libraries looking for these songs and podcasts. Meanwhile, there’s a service called Liberplay, which hosts music that’s banned by other platforms. Their mission statement reads “we don’t want culture to be censored, regardless of its content.” Lovely sentiment, but guess who takes advantage of that position? Yep.