Another Attempt by Spotify to Make Its Platform Free of Harmful Content

Spotify further tightens its platform by acquiring Kinzen,. (photo: doc. spotify)

JAKARTA - Spotify has further tightened its platform by acquiring Kinzen, a company that has helped it identify harmful content.

The acquisition is part of Spotify's efforts to tackle malicious content on its service, after the company suffered a backlash earlier this year over the podcast The Joe Rogan Experience.

Where the podcaster is claimed to have spread misinformation regarding COVID-19 on one of his podcasts. Meanwhile, Kinzen has been working with Spotify since 2020.

Initially the Dublin-based company focused on the integrity of election-related content around the world. Since then, Kinzen has obtained permission to identify content that includes targeting misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech.

"Kinzen offers a combination of tools and expertise to help us better understand the content on our platform and emerging abuse trends," said Spotify's head of trust and security, Sarah Hoyle in a statement.

According to the streaming service, it's better to moderate podcasts and other audio using a combination of machine learning and human expertise, the latter of which includes analysis from local academics and journalists.

In the future, Kinzen will also provide early warning of problems, helping Spotify more effectively moderate content in more languages.

Spotify says Kinzen will be invaluable because it is able to analyze content in hundreds of languages ​​and dialects, and will help companies detect emerging threats across markets.

Cited from TechCrunch, Thursday, October 6, this cross-platform support is especially important, given Spotify's expansion into video podcasts and the desire to cater to advertisers who don't want their brand positioned next to harmful content.

Earlier this year, Spotify said it would be more transparent in determining acceptable and unacceptable content.

At the same time, the company published the rules for the first time in January. Meanwhile in June, he formed a Security Advisory Council to provide advice on malicious content.