Spotify can now use Kinzen’s algorithms to hunt down content that’s likely to be problematic
(Picture: Lionel Bonaventure/AFP via Getty Images)After finding itself in the centre of an unwanted argument about free speech and misinformation earlier this year, Spotify has stepped up its misinformation defences by purchasing Kinzen — a company that combined machine learning and a human eye to spot harmful content at scale.
Kinzen can examine audio, video, and text-based information for harmful content across multiple languages and dialects. That’s something extremely important for Spotify, as it aims to be the go-to destination for podcasts of all kinds, some of which err on the controversial, attention-grabbing side.
On the human side, Kinzen offers early warnings about the kind of things that are currently hot topics in the misinformation world, from medical and climate misinformation to hate speech and violent extremism. From there, the algorithms can hunt down content that’s likely to be problematic.
By bringing Kinzen in-house, Spotify hopes to get on top of these problems before they erupt in the way that Joe Rogan’s Covid-19 related podcasts did — something that ultimately saw not only bad press for Spotify, but musicians demanding their songs be pulled from a service that is still primarily about music.
“We’ve long had an impactful and collaborative partnership with Kinzen and its exceptional team,” said Dustee Jenkins, Spotify’s global head of public affairs. “Now, working together as one, we’ll be able to even further improve our ability to detect and address harmful content, and importantly, in a way that better considers local context.”
But hidden in this positive statement is a problem: Spotify has been working with Kinzen since 2020. That predates the Joe Rogan fallout by at least 14 months, and suggests that this won’t be a magic bullet in pre-empting the next big scandal. It also puts Spotify in the awkward position of being an arbiter of how much free speech is too much.
Still, this isn’t something that is happening in isolation. In June, Spotify formed a Safety Advisory Council to shape company “products in a safe way while making sure we respect creator expression”.
Interestingly, listed among the panel of academics and experts on the council are Kinzen co-founders Mark Little and Áine Kerr, who will now presumably have a closer relationship with Spotify than ever before.
With thousands of podcasts added every day, Spotify will certainly need all the help it can get. But time will tell whether this has any meaningful impact on the average subscriber’s Spotify Wrapped list.
