Despite rules on anti-extremism on its platform, it looks like Spotify is doing little to tackle extremist artists and in some cases promoting them.

According to a report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a total of 40 white supremacist acts were being hosted on Spotify, violating the platform’s rules against ‘dangerous content’.

Spotify has had trouble in the past over content moderation issues when it got literally cancelled over the Joe Rogan controversy. Following this, it published its ‘Platform Rules’ detailing its anti-extremist policies for the first time, which has since been updated.

The report found that white supremacist bands from a range of musical genres and sub-genres were allowed to thrive on the platform.

The three most popular white supremacist sub-genres on Spotify were identified as Fashwave, Rock Against Communism (RAC) and National Socialist Black Metal (NSBM).

Fashwave is a sub-genre of the non-extremist Vaporwave electronic music and was created to spread white supremacist ideology. Fashwave has been hailed by neo-Nazis as ‘the whitest music ever’.

Some of the song titles are ‘Reich Machine’ and ‘Aryan Fury’ which serve as references to Nazi Germany.

RAC is a sub-genre of Punk, and its songs promote antisemitism and racism. The movement started in the British punk scene in the late 1970s but RAC concerts are organised multiple times annually in the US.

The report describes NSBM as a sub-genre of Heavy Metal that focuses specifically on promoting fascism and white supremacy. The sub-genre grew in the early 1990’s with the rise of Norwegian Death Metal and often glorify war.

Many of these white supremacist artists were also ‘verified’ artists on the platform. Verified artists can expand their fanbases using Spotify’s tools and metrics and can be included in playlists produced by Spotify itself.

While some artists’ work like Wiking 1940 and Pugilato NSHC was removed following ADL’s communication with Spotify, users can still search for these artists. They still appear in playlists but their songs are not currently playable.

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