Spotify is facing criticism for allegedly hosting a number of ‘podcasts’ promoting illegal drug sales. Photo Credit: Joshua Coleman
Multiple outlets have written about and claimed credit for the takedowns. However, it appears that an X user named Lauren Balik was first to bring attention to the pill-plugging podcasts.
Early last week, Balik posted Spotify screenshots displaying a portion of the relevant uploads. Though we previously touched on Spotify’s pharmaceutical-focused advertising expansion, it seems safe to say these uploads centered on illegal drugs.
Per the mentioned screenshots, the so-called podcasts were entitled “Tramadol No Prescription Exclusive,” “Order Percocet Online Overnight,” “ORDER ADDERALL ONLINE ALL TIME,” and “Buy Tramadol Online with Holiday Discounts,” to name a few.
Often running less than a minute apiece – and sometimes containing no audio whatsoever – the uploads directed one to the appropriate websites via their cover images and text descriptions, the screenshots show.
Surprisingly, on the text side, the not-so-subtle operations seemingly included straight links. Meanwhile, bearing in mind the aforesaid “Buy Tramadol Online with Holiday Discounts” title, several of the podcasts had apparently been uploaded to Spotify months back.
One needn’t look too hard to find lingering seconds-long “podcasts” (multiple uploaded way back in 2022) promoting websites purporting to sell mail-delivery drugs.
A few of these sites claim to offer legal substances, and their exact status under the law is unclear. In any event, the uploads at hand certainly don’t constitute podcasts and would best be axed from the platform.
When it comes to the service’s library, we’ve already covered the presence of adult-video “podcasts,” seemingly unauthorized music uploads classified as podcasts, and more. Following the idea to its logical conclusion, podcast volume is evidently front of mind for Spotify amid an aggressive video buildout – and stiff competition from YouTube in this area.
Stated bluntly, then, Spotify says it hosts “nearly 7 million podcast titles,” but there’s room for speculation about the exact number of actual shows therein.
Beyond the above-described substance-selling uploads, the service features many non-podcast videos (like TikTok compilations and a whole lot else) that have made their way into the podcast category.
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