Spotify: ‘No Nazi Bands Allowed!’
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Music streaming services have completely revolutionized the way we listen to music nowadays. While we once had to save up our pocket money to buy Britney Spears’ second (and best!) album at the local record store, we can now discover new music every day without going broke (overwhelmingly to the detriment of most bands, but I digress).
For those of us with a hankering for white nationalist music, however, Spotify just made it a lot harder to scratch that itch. In response to an article published on Digital Music News Monday, which named several white nationalist and neo-Nazi bands that currently had their music up on Spotify, the company announced it would be removing those bands entirely from its platform.
A statement issued by Spotify reads:
Spotify takes immediate action to remove any such material as soon as it has been brought to our attention,” We are glad to have been alerted to this content — and have already removed many of the bands identified today, whilst urgently reviewing the remainder.
The list of hate bands shared by Digital Music News was initially compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2014 and includes bands with names like The Spear of Longinus, Kill, Baby… Kill!, and Dark Fury.
Spotify, unlike Donald Trump, joins a growing number of companies and public figures who are trying to teach neo-Nazis that they can’t get away with marching through the streets chanting, “Jews will replace us!”
Becky Scott is the editor of The Schmooze. Follow her on Twitter, @arr_scott
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