Playlists Being Falsely Reported!!!

[30secondindie]

I've been put into an extremely frustrating situation that some of you may have also had problems with. Someone is falsely reporting my playlists, and there's nothing I can do about it. When someone reports your playlist, Spotify will automatically remove the playlist title, playlist bio, and playlist avatar, even if there is nothing that is breaking the rules of the user agreement policy. 

I run a rather large Indie/Alternative music blog, and my most recent Spotify playlist quickly gained traction and was starting to build a pretty decent sized following. However, I woke up two days after creating it to find that playlist title was blank and there was no bio. Thinking this was an error or glitch in the system, I changed it back. Not more than 30 minutes later, everything went blank again. After 5 more times of this happening, I contacted Spotify about this issue. They let me know that someone has been reporting my playlist for copyright. Well, I had no playlist picture, I was using the standard Spotify playlist art, the title was "Positive Energy Indie/Alternative Tunes" and there was absolutely nothing that would suggest a copyright issue. To fix this issue and get my playlist back, I had to file a counter-claim, and the user who flagged my playlist will have 10 days to respond. However, even if my playlist gets republished, that same user can report it again and I will be in this same issue all over again. Spotify also told me that it would be extremely hard to pinpoint the user that is falsely reporting my playlist, so there's pretty much nothing I can do about it.

As someone that depends on Spotify for my music blog and social media channels, I can not afford to have someone reporting my playlists just for the fun of it, whether that be for better SEO rankings or just because they don't like my channel. I do not wish this problem on anyone, and I think it is an absolutely terribly flawed system that can be abused way too often. There has to be a better reporting system on Spotify's end, or at least some greater protection for users that value Spotify's service and depend on it for their business. 

[30secondindie]

Hey there folks!

Thanks for reporting this to us and we're sorry to hear that this has been happening to you.

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[Anthony_JGreco]

my 1940s playlist was randomly reported when it hit 4000+ likes. Spotify removed it, and customer support refuses to reinstate it. Customer support has done NOTHING to help.

[LinkBen34]

BUMP, this needs to stop, please remove the report option until it is fixed!

[Maracas]

My playlist has been falsely reported over 700 times in the last 3 months and still gets reported 5-10 times every single day.

Spotify is allowing with this system anyone to cyber-bully, harass and intimidate its clients. 

[LenaeLesiow]

PLEASE fix this Spotify. At the rate it occurs, it should be considered harassment. Please improve your process to stop this from happening.

[Kaartik_Arora]

Hello spotify ,
It is really high time now I am fed up with your services towards an honest and regular user.
Have you even checked what the title of playlist and description is? It's really hard writing name and description again and again after someone reports it JUST FOR THE SAKE OF FUN.
Your actions have become intolerable these days as nowadays my playlist gets blank every time I open it and check it
The fact here is that after going through your terms and conditions and then even verifying it I found that there is actually no violating information in my TITLE OR DESCRIPTION !!!! .
It is high time now since past three years I have maintaining a playlist and seeing it blank everyday ruins my feelings .
Even my regular supporters are complaining me about this issue 
I WANT TO YOU TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTIONS regarding this as it is really annoying because of a random person my time and day both are getting ruined .

[DJWagner92]

Spotify has completely gutted customer service, and everyone here is usually merged from another thread. They don’t care. At all. Spotify is embodying their capitalist nature. The only thing they’ll listen to is money, so we have to stop giving it to them.

[MCA94]

My entire account was disabled because someone reported my playlist. I had no idea what was wrong with it and got no response when I asked. I tried changing both the cover and title. What's crazy is I am seeing people here getting their playlists taken down hundred of times. My entire account was suspended after the 3rd one in a year! I was a premium subscriber since 2013 and had between 150-200 playlists. I have tried chat, email and replying to the takedown notifications and nobody will help me. They even ignored me when I asked for a copy of my data. I am beyond disgusted.

[#10]

Received an email that sounded like spam that my playlist had breached rules but checked and it hadn't. Now the playlist can be seen on my profile but no where else. I've ensured public is on too but still nothing

[DJGarnet]

I’ve had the same issue, 2 days ago my playlist disappeared from public view, then I received an email from Spotify saying I was in violation of their content policies, and they had removed it.

I’d used the same list name & description for ages, however had changed it two days before.

All I could think of was- I had used wording that was similar to the name of one of their lists!

So changed it back to my original text (had to do this twice, as after the first time it disappeared again) & have not had any issues since.
It may take trial & error to work out what wording you have used that they think is too similar to their own, but keep trying!

[DoomNation]

It’s 2023 and the issue is still going on. One of my favorite playlists has already been taken down several times. Spotify support just gives you a canned response then rudely cuts off the chat. 

[Maracas]

that's not true

[IDelixus]

Yo tengo el mismo problema y no se como parar eso me viven reportando la cuenta que curiosamente es la que más seguidores tienes !!! Deberían quitar la opción de reportar en las cuentas gratuitas 

[elixanova]

Chiming in on this because this happened to me last year before the reporting tool changed. For anyone interested, the previous way to report a playlist was easily exploitable by using a python script that could spam the reporting tool: I experienced my playlist being reported literally every minute for days. I put a title and image back in and it would go down again. Spotify used to have a response mechanism in emails where you could dispute this each time. I assume it got so overwhelming they changed the reporter tool so it's less easily exploited. There's also no way to dispute it anymore, and yes I also experienced how rude the customer service is about it now. 

Just yesterday I started experiencing it again and I've even IDENTIFIED the user who is doing it to me. I still don't get what people gain from stealing playlist names, are they making money off it? There looks to be little help spotify is going to provide its paying users, so I encourage anyone experiencing this to reach out to support at spotify dot com, vehemently every time this happens to you until they pay attention again. The reporting system is quite broken and I don't believe there is anyone reviewing a report to confirm any term breaking, it's still just an exploited auto-removal tool for cyber bullies.

[#16]

I've recieving policy report notification about a month. I really like using spotify however nowadays my profile picture or playlist cover deleting I need your help. am I paying for struggle? I couldnt get any advisor's help either.

[snowed]

hey, I just wanted to say the same thing has been happening to me T_T 

[#18]

Every day again one of my playlist names is being deleted and I have had this playlist name for years.

[wisteriawisty]

I absolutely agree. I've been in some drama with an ex best friend of mine who's made it their life's mission to report any and all spotify playlists they assume are about them, even when there's nothing breaking content rules in them, and even if it's not about them, they just want to make my life miserable. I'm so frustrated as I can't find a way to appeal my playlists being taken down and I can't block this ex friend because they've already blocked me and I can't view their profile at all. I'm so frustrated. I'm glad I'm not the only one this has happened to. they should at least be reviewing what the playlist is to make sure it actually breaks content rules before taking it down.

[Ammeirua97]

my playlist title keeps getting deleted. It happens about every other day. I have sent over a dozen emails the last week and no one replies to me. Does anyone have any other solutions for me? 

[HarleyGin]

I have a somewhat popular Japanese City pop playlist and for some reason it keeps getting taken down almost daily saying this playlist violates Spotify's terms and agreements, which isn't true. I don't know how to stop the malicious reporting, so please help.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0GW2I4PGAsjE1Vt0eMcBnG?si=eee004acecb34502

[Shwasx]

My playlist with 50k followers has been spam reported for copyright and harmful guide lines, I do not ofc have pictures that are copyright, or its not harmful either. It has been getting reported within 24 hours now for over 2 years, so I do not know what is going on. I can't get in contact with spotift through mail, because they NEVER answer. What to do?