Playlist title and description keeps getting deleted

[MKohary]

Plan: Premium
Country: USA
Device: all
Operating System: all

I have a playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/22fOcPkJZ4xngAuOep1oqI?si=fec8bcdb00014226

The title of this playlist should be "1970s/80s Easy Listening", and the description should be, "A carefully curated selection of easy listening hits from the 1970s and early 1980s, the golden age of soft rock."

My playlist has 9000+ "likes", and unless you irrationally hate soft rock, it's about as unoffensive as it gets. Yet, every so often, Spotify deletes the playlist's title and description. Not the playlist itself, that is fine (so far). But the title and description are wiped out and I have to re-enter them - I have them memorized by now.

When this happens, I usually get an e-mail notification. Today's read:

From: Policy Report Notification
Subject: Takedown Notification
We have found the following content to be in violation of our content policies, and we have removed it. Please see our Spotify Terms and Conditions of Use for more information. spotify:playlist:22fOcPkJZ4xngAuOep1oqI

I find this whole situation absurd. Many months ago I created a support ticket, and although I never heard an actual response, the issue did seem to clear up and my playlist was left intact for about the last 6-8 months or so. But for the last 2 weeks, it's been happening again daily, and it's beyond frustrating. I assume there's some Spotify bot or algorithm that's doing this, but WHY? All the content is Spotify's; how can their own content be in violation of their content policies? The songs and album art are all from Spotify, my only contribution besides collecting them into a playlist is adding a title and description, which mysteriously keep getting deleted.

This is one of my favorite playlists - that's why I made it - and I'm happy that it coincidentally makes a lot of other people happy - it's my only playlist that has so many likes! So, it's pretty distressing that it seems to be in constant danger. I'd be supremely angry if it were ever deleted entirely, and I hope it never happens. Anyway, what the heck is going on? What do I need to do to ensure this doesn't happen any more? I like the title and description just the way they are, and there should be nothing wrong with them. Thanks for any help.

[geovanebento]

Hey! Welcome to the community! If your playlist does not violate any of the playlist creation and disclosure rules, you can report your issue to this contact: https://support.spotify.com/us/report-content/

That way I believe you will have a more satisfactory answer to your question. Hope this helps. Big hug and good luck!

[mousehawk]

This is not a solution to the problem OP is having, the link goes to a reporting form that doesn't have an option for people to report they're being targeted by malicious reports. One of my playlists has been taken down about a dozen times in the last 2 days.

[djjonnyjuice]

I had the exact same problem today and received the same email. The title of my playlist is “300 Great Workout Songs.” The description is “Something here for everybody! Classic Rock. Motown. Dance. Pop. New Age. Disco. Metal. Classical. Movie and TV music! Lots of 70s. Lots of 80s.” Does Spotify have something against the 70s and 80s?! I wish they had the courtesy to indicate what triggered the violation. Then this silliness could stop.

[mousehawk]

It'll be someone trying to make their workout playlist rank higher than everyone else's, rather than an actual policy violation.

I ended up beating the takedown harassment by running a script on my computer to automatically restore the title/description/thumbnail each time it got wiped.

It got taken down 70 times before they gave up! Happened several times a day for a month. Most of the takedowns were during 9am-5pm Mon-Fri working hours so I think my list was being hit by a paid promoter. Though there were a few takedowns at 2am like they thought I'd be asleep and wouldn't fix it for hours.

Another playlist with a really similar name was created the day before the takedowns started, I went snooping and found the creator and a marketing company both advertising it on Twitter... Blatantly obvious the report function was being abused but Spotify don't give a damn.

[djjonnyjuice]

Wow.  Makes sense. Thanks for explaining. So someone is reporting my playlist. It’s actually an indirect compliment because it means someone feels threatened by a good playlist. Good research on your part. Thanks for the info!

[madison99davis]

This is so infuriating! I have had the same thing happen to me so many times I have lost count of the amount of times I have had to rename my playlist, just for it to get taken down 10 minutes later. I had almost 30,000 likes on my playlist before all this mess started, and now have steadily lost likes because my playlist remains unnamed. Does anyone have any idea or suggestion on what to do? I have contacted Spotify's customer service reps many times, and none of them have been able to help me resolve the issue.

[qsalazar]

I'm having the EXACT same issue... My playlist is called Hair Metal Hits From The 80s.... And it's keeps getting deleted! Spotify won't respond to anything. If there any solutions, please reply. 

[djjonnyjuice]

Take a screenshot of your description and keep adding it back in.
Eventually the deleters will quit. That was the only effective solution I
found. It must be a good playlist or they wouldn’t bother.

[Making_Demonade]

This has happened to my Arabic Rock Playlist. Someone keeps going around maliciously reporting my playlist and other playlists made by other users with a similar title. This has happened twice already. 

I tried to contact support three times and all three times, they simply disconnected saying:

"We don't have any more information to share, but we'll be here if you need help with anything else"

I am talking to support now and they will likely disconnect and ignore me soon as well. I'll post an update. 

I am so disappointed in Spotify and their automated deletion systems. It seems like this issue has been going on for some time now, but Spotify has no intent to tackle it. Cheap. 

[Making_Demonade]

Woops, sorry, meant to say "Arabic Metal" playlist 🙂 

[Making_Demonade]

Update: finally support came through and took my email to contact me. They said they need to refer this to a "higher level of customer support"

Makes me wonder why the last 3 people didn't do that!

In any case, let's see where this will go, if they will ever change this weird policy of theirs or make a concrete change. 
I'll post an update 🙂 

[Dryfter]

any chance you could share that script? I've got the same issue, and im not going to allow some morally bereft intellectual infant to stop me from using the same playlist names ive had for like 9 years.

[mousehawk]

Here it is: 

https://github.com/mousehawk/spotify-playlist-updater/

I modified the updater script originally made by aeriie to make it check more often, only fix the playlist if it needs fixed, and keep a tally of the number of times it needed restored.

[Dryfter]

I've gotten it to say "starting playlist update", but nothing happens after that that I can tell. heres the .py file (with identifiers removed):

import time
import schedule
import spotipy
import spotipy.util as util
from spotipy.oauth2 import SpotifyOAuth

import base64
with open ("C:\\Users\\XXXX\\Desktop\\spotipy\\spotify-playlist-updater-main\\data\\rXXXX.jpg", "rb") as img_file:
myimage = base64.b64encode(img_file.read())

print("Starting Playlist updater")

def func():
scope = 'playlist-modify-public ugc-image-upload'

# Spotify Username
username = 'XXXXX'

# Spotify Developer App Client ID and Secret ID
SPOTIPY_CLIENT_ID = 'XhiddenID'
SPOTIPY_CLIENT_SECRET = 'XhiddensecretID'

token = util.prompt_for_user_token(username,scope,SPOTIPY_CLIENT_ID,SPOTIPY_CLIENT_SECRET,redirect_uri='https://mysecret.wixsite.com/spotifypayback')
sp = spotipy.Spotify(auth=token)

# Playlist Data
id = 'https://open.spotify.com/playlist/Xactualplaylistaddress'
playlist_name = 'name here (yes, its my playlist name, not this)'
playlist_description = 'xxxxx'
image_b64 = myimage

sp.playlist_upload_cover_image(playlist_id=id, image_b64 = myimage)
sp.user_playlist_change_details(username, id, name=playlist_name, description=playlist_description)

print("Playlist updated")

def func2():
schedule.every(1).minutes.do(func)
return schedule.CancelJob

#You can replace minutes with seconds, hours, etc
schedule.every(1).minutes.do(func2)

i replaced any potential identifying info. the actual values are entered in the script

[Dryfter]

I had support tell me the same. never got a followup email, and now support messaging just closes the chat window after saying to respond toi an email I never received. (and before you ask, I whitelisted the term 'spotify' from spam the moment this issue started, and no, there is no email from them).