Can't block explicit podcasts

[mkhstoll]

Plan

Premium Family

Country

USA

Device

multi

Operating System

multi

My Question or Issue

Hey Spotify,

I am the mother of teen and tween boys and I'm paying you for a service called Premium FAMILY. I did my research and signed up because I was able to block explicit content for family members, and I did. But guess what, it doesn't apply to podcasts. So guess what? Of course my teen has been using his Spotify account to search up podcasts with explicit sexual content. They aren't hard to find. I want someone from customer service to contact me NOW. It is not hard to allow Premium FAMILY managers to block or allow specific podcasts, or to apply content filters and explicit flagging to podcasts. Please tell me there is a solution I'm just not seeing. Or that there is a fix planned SOON. Or maybe Spotify isn't the right place for families. That's cool. Plenty of other options.

[Elena]

Hey there @mkhstoll!

Thanks for reaching out to the Community! 

The Explicit filter also works for podcasts and videos but the the 'explicit' tag won't always show up -  it is recorded in the metadata of the podcast.

Content we identify as explicit is based on information we receive from rights-holders, so it’s possible some explicit content will still play even if you’ve blocked explicit-rated content. 

If you'd like to report a podcast as explicit you can reach out to our support team here.

You can also suggest the option to report podcast as explicit via the app on our Ideas board so that it could get support from other users as well. Take a look at this page to see how to post an Idea.

If you're interested in how ideas work and how your feedback reaches the right teams here, check this page out.

Let us know if there's anything else we can do for you. We'd be happy to help.

[JoeQ]

This is actually a major issue, as there appear to be a large number of graphic sexual podcasts that fly right through the existing parental control filters.

[Luan]

Hi, everyone @JoeQ @mkhstoll 

Just to confirm what @Elena said above, there is already a suggestion on the Idea Exchange board that requests the possibility to report some explicit or offensive podcasts. You can leave your support to this idea to make that it arrives Staff ears.

• [All Platforms][Podcasts] Report offensive/explicit podcasts

Keep in mind that ideas with the status Closed - Not Enough Votes are still monitored by Spotify.

If you have any other further questions or need more help, let me know! I'd love to help!

Best Regards,
hezorg

[virtualchamie]

Completely agree with this. TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE to offer family plan with pretense of parental controls and not apply this to podcasts. Spotify needs to offer options to block all podcasts, block explicit podcasts, block specific podcasts, and only allow approved podcasts into the family plan. We had moved to Spotify as our family music platform but will not stay if this continues to be an issue. 

[Jeremy]

Hey there @virtualchamie,

Thank you for your post and feedback.

We're constantly aiming to improve our features so we hope you’ll continue using it and find it gets better in the future. 

Once again - thanks for the feedback, we appreciate it. Let us know if we can help with anything else. We're always one reply away.
 

Cheers!

[virtualchamie]

thanks for the reply - but apart fro reading these complaints is Spotify doing something about this?

[mkhstoll]

Jeremy,
Spotify can help by applying parental controls to podcasts in the same way that parental controls are available for music. Is there a plan to do this or not?

Thanks,
Melanie

[Alex]

Hi there @mkhstoll,

Thanks for the suggestion.

If you think other users might also like it, go ahead and create an idea on the relevant idea board. We always take new ideas and feedback into consideration to improve the app. Here you can read more on how ideas work.

We also suggest checking this help article for useful tips on how to submit an idea. As a heads-up, it's good to know that the higher the number of votes an idea gets, the more likely it is for the idea to be implemented.

Let us know if you have any more questions.

[Rem5]

Dear Spotify

Your answers to blocking explicit podcasts are inadequate at best. There are thousands+ of adults on your family plan and my guess is they are not going to wait around and continue to support Spotify while there kids can get access to explicit, inappropriate content!

If you are choosing not to address this issue have the decency to let this community know so that we can make our own decisions.

We're all trying very hard to raise our kids in the age of technology and you can be a positive force here.

We deserve an answer/update and ultimately action to figure out a way to block explicit podcast content like you've chosen to do with music.

thank you

[joelster]

Come on Spotify team - allowing parents to block their kids being exposed to adult podcasts (which are not even being flagged as explicit!) is critical. I've just signed up for the family plan, but will cancel if this is not addressed asap.

[mouwthe]

6 months later and this is still an issue. Spotify should have created a mechanism to block this content before they made it available.

[ramimohammedsei]

https://open.spotify.com/show/7GXg4QZNGaldnDMGGqW16B?si=3E3zGMIHRrOVURQEg_PsBA

I made a little experiment. I guess it might be the most explicit podcast there is on Spotify. I marked it as explicit, if you couldn't listen to it from your child's account, then the only possible reason is that the podcast owners didn't mark their episode as explicit. thus you should report the explicit content on Spotify, so that Spotify could make it explicit.

[mkhstoll]

Yes, it is to be expected that makers of explicit podcasts won’t voluntarily mark their content as explicit. It’s the Wild West out there in content land. THAT’S WHY SPOTIFY NEEDS TO MAKE IT POSSIBLE TO JUST BLOCK ALL PODCASTS FROM SPECIFIC FAMILY USER ACCOUNTS.

It is not hard. Yes I am yelling. Because it is not hard. Yet instead of doing anything about it, Spotify just keeps taking us parents around in circles. It’s infuriating.

Thanks,
Melanie

[ramimohammedsei]

Podcasts are extremely important, maybe Spotify should actively use it's Advanced ML to block any explicit content from the podcast, like a verification pending thing. I mean it's aggressively embracing podcasts & I like that, But they should think about the children who are using Spotify too.

[joelster]

Agree with your comments! If you don't mind supporting us spotify fans with kids - please add your vote here: [All Platforms][Podcasts] Report offensive/explici... - The Spotify Community

[Fedupwithit]

Just discovered that our 12 yr son has been listening to **bleep** podcasts despite having a family plan that blocks explicit content.  I figured that there must be an easy solution and I am aghast to learn in this forum that parents have been complaining about this issue since 2017 --- that's 4 yrs in which Spotify has done nothing.  That is unforgivable and says plenty to me about their morals and how much "families" mean to them.  Parenting is hard enough, Spotify. I'm cancelling my subscription now and moving over to Apple Music.  

[Jeremy]

Hi there folks,

Thank you for your posts and feedback.

We can’t tag all explicit content because it depends on information we get from rights-holders. 

We suggest that you head over to the idea that's mentioned above and leave a +VOTE and Subscribe to the thread for any updates as you can still vote on ideas with that status.

@Fedupwithit - when it comes to your son, we suggest that you head over to this article to read more about Spotify kids. This is an app for kids that's under Spotify's age limit.

Let us know if we can help you with anything else 🙂

Take care!

[joelster]

@jeremy Your answer doesn’t address the problem - if the “rights holders” cannot flag their adult content as such, then Spotify please allow the subscribers to do it for you! Why allow young kids to listen to content on **bleep** that many of us adults wouldn’t want to be exposed to either?! And no, at 13 or 15 they are too old for Spotify Kids but seriously don’t need to be exposed to these adult podcasts. Please come up with a real solution!!

[Novy]

Hey @joelster, 

Thanks for your reply. 

We understand where you're coming from. As @Elena mentioned, you can reach out to our Support team here in order to report a podcast as explicit. 

If anything else comes up, we'll be here. 

Cheers.