Spotify News: Streaming Music Leader Will Suspend Political Advertising For 2020

Spotify, the leader of the streaming music industry, confirmed Friday that it would be ceasing political advertising on its platform for 2020. The company boasts 141 million users of the free, ad-driven version of its service. This suspension will also extend to other aspects of Spotify’s business, like podcasts and original content.

“At this point in time, we do not yet have the necessary level of robustness in our processes, systems and tools to responsibly validate and review this content,” a spokeswoman confirmed to media outlets. “We will reassess this decision as we continue to evolve our capabilities.”

This change in policy will bar advertising from candidates, parties, and any sort of political action group (PAC). The change will also block advertising for any sort of judicial or legislative outcome. The company has specified that only its own advertising sales will be subject to his ban. Any sort of ad featured in third-party content, like podcasts, will remain subject to preexisting content guidelines.

Spotify would not disclose how much revenue it had been making from political ads prior to this change.

As a presidential election year looms in 2020, numerous high-profile media platforms are being pressured to more effectively monitor the political advertising they host, due to the rise of false and misleading ads in recent years. To combat these issues, Twitter made the decision to ban all political ads, while Google stopped allowing advertisers to access data such as voter records and political affiliations.

Spotify has only recently become a potentially major player in the ad space once these changes from other platforms went into effect, a Republican strategist told Reuters.