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• 18-member advisory council will advise on policies and safety feature development
• Spotify received backlash after Joe Rogan’s podcast was accused of spreading misinformation about COVID-19, this year
Spotify Technology SA (NYSE: SPOT) on Monday said the audio-streaming giant has formed an 18-member Safety Advisory Council to provide third-party input on issues such as online abuse, hate speech, disinformation and extremism.
The group is another step in Spotify’s efforts to deal with harmful content on its audio streaming service after the company received backlash earlier this year over “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, in which the presenter was accused of spreading misinformation about COVID-19.
The experts, including representatives from Washington, D.C. civil rights group the Center for Democracy & Technology, the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and the Institute for Technology and Society in Brazil, will advise on policies and safety feature development.
“The idea is to bring in these world-renowned experts, many of whom have been in this space for a number of years, to realize a relationship with them,” Spotify’s global head of public affairs, Dustee Jenkins, told Reuters.
“And to ensure that it’s not talking to them when we’re in the middle of a situation … Instead, we’re meeting with them on a pretty regular basis so that we can be much more proactive about how we’re thinking about these issues across the company.”
Audio streaming giant’s head of trust and safety Sarah Hoyle told Reuters that the advisory council was not formed in reaction to “any particular creator or situation” but rather to acknowledge the challenges of operating a global service at a time when online threats are continuously evolving.
“How do we augment the internal expertise that we already have at Spotify to tap into these folks whose life’s work has been studying this, and they’re on the ground in markets all around the world, just like our users, just like our creators,” said Hoyle.
Picture Credit: BBC
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