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[All Platforms] Explicit Filter

Submitted by on ‎2012-02-18 04:32 PM
Status: implemented

Add a button that controls whether Explicit songs are played or not.  When it is off and you're listening to an album or playlist, the explicit songs are skipped. That way you can still listen to your favorite album or playlist when more impressionable members of the family (kids / parents) are around.

Updated on 2018-12-06

Hey folks!

It's great to hear music as the artist intended it to be heard, this means Spotify can sometimes include explicit content.
 
We recommend looking out for the EXPLICIT tag on any releases (E on the web player).
Note: Our explicit content tags are applied based on information we receive from rights-holders. This means we can’t guarantee all explicit content is marked as such. 

It's also now possible to use the Explicit content filter on mobile and tablet devices (more devices coming soon!). Right now, the setting is only for the individual account and device. If you do apply the setting on your phone, it doesn't filter explicit content for the same account on the desktop app. It also doesn’t apply if you use Spotify Connect to play to another device. For more information on this, check out this support article.

We'll keep you up-to-date if there's anything else to share!

Thanks
Comments
jdlomax
Visitor
2016-02-06 05:27 PM

I've posted twice recently on this thread so wanted to finish off my story.

 

Having trialled Google Play Music for a week I have just cancelled my Spotify Premium account. It took me an hour or so to rebuild by playlists and I haven't found anything missing that I was using Spotify for. I'm not quite as keen on the app design but it will grow on me. More importantly for this thread the first thing I did was check the 'Block explicit songs in radio' box ('radio' is Google Play's version of curated playlists). It took no time at all and works well. No more worries when playing playlists in front of my two year old son.

 

This thread is almost four years old and still Spotify does nothing about it. I'm genuinely baffled as to why, when other services offer this, Spotify won't even engage with the issue seriously. This is the only reason I am leaving the service, which seems ridiculous, but there is no point in staying when an alost identical service is available with the features I want.

 

Farewell Spotify - I'll look at you again if you start listening to your customers.

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user-removed
Not applicable
2016-02-06 05:34 PM

Hello everyone,

 

I have found a tool that has a function to filter out explicit tracks. The tool you can find here: http://playlistmachinery.com/

 

Cheers,

 

Vincent

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siffring
Visitor
2016-02-06 05:35 PM

 I think its funny that I can mark a comment as innappropreate in the idea forums and that swear words are not allowed here (i.e. censored by default) but Spotify will not give users a simple choice to turn ON or OFF if explicit tracks are played. 

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jraynis
Visitor
2016-02-07 10:26 PM

Sorry, but I'll bail until Spotify can deal with the idea that letting customers choose not to listen to explicit lyrics isn't censorship. It's just another choice for selecting music, like choosing genres or moods. Bye bye, $potify.  😞

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iamboriskarloff
Visitor
2016-02-07 11:20 PM

I cancelled my subscription some time ago, but I've kept an eye on this forum in case the issue get's resolved.

 

I've read a lot of frustrated e-mails from Spotify users who have tried to reason with Spotify staff. All they seem to get is nonsense about censorship which is not what anyone in this forum has asked for. We just want the freedom to listen to what we want to and not listen to what we do not want to.

 

Clearly the issue is not technical. Back at Spotify there is a philisophical conviction that it is good for our puritan souls (and those of our children) to be forced to listen to explicit lyrics. There aren't enough people who are willing to cancel their subscriptions over the issue, so the financial impact is not significant, at least not yet.

 

I'm unsubscribing from this forum, because it seems a bit pointless. Time to move on...

 

Good luck to you all.

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bluechompy
Newbie
2016-02-08 10:32 AM

Currently on a spotify trial - for me the absence of this filter is what will stop me moving on to becoming a subscriber. I love the ability to pick someone elses playlist, find new artists and radio based on an artist  - but with a young familty it's just not possible to use the service fully without first copying playlists and removing the explicit songs.And I don't have the time or inclination to do that.

 

So thanks for the free musiic and let me know when you've put a filter in place.

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drea828
Visitor
2016-02-08 08:06 PM
This would be amazing. I haven't been listening much lately because my kids are young and don't need to hear that stuff. If I listen with them around it's kids bop. 🙂
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popper123
Newbie
2016-02-09 12:19 AM

Love the app, love the sound quality, **bleep**ing hate the fact I can't disable **bleep**ing foul language.

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popper123
Newbie
2016-02-09 12:21 AM

And to add a followup comments love how their forms deny explicit language but they can stream it. Hypocrites at their best.  Won't be signing up.

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99Joanna
Newbie
2016-02-09 11:25 AM

 Totally agree!

 

Had my 7 year old in the room yesterday when the afternoon relax mix was on. It started with Pillow Talk and Zayn saying f@@@ing and then later on a whole load of expletives from a song which went on for ever (Stormzy) as I tried to hit the passwords for my phone to get it to stop.

 

She said "mum that's a lot of swear words I think" I looked in horror as don't want my child to ever hear those words at the very least not in my own living room.

 

A couple of songs on the playlist had their rude words blanked out but not these two!! ARGH.  Won't be using the pre-done playlists again. 1st and last time til this issue is sorted out!

 

 

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