Spotify removes 75 million spam tracks and filters 50 million more

Spotify has removed more than 75 million tracks identified as slop or spam from its service.

The company said on 20 October the removed releases had committed serious or repeated violations of its rules, according to details published by Spotify Newsroom. It is a large cut. Spotify links the rise in junk uploads to the rapid spread of generative AI tools.

A further 50 million tracks have been filtered out of recommendations. They are still on Spotify, but listeners will not get them pushed in personalised playlists or autoplay. Users must actively seek them out to find them, as reported by Variety.

Spotify said the action followed complaints about quality. Tracks that listeners were skipping, ignoring or marking as unwanted were consistently the ones its systems flagged as slop or spam, Rolling Stone reported. Its editors do not programme content flagged in that way.

The company named five tactics it is watching. They are mass uploads, duplicate recordings, SEO manipulation, which means gaming search terms to grab streams, spammy playlist networks and artificially short tracks designed to collect plays quickly.

To find poor-quality uploads, Spotify said it uses listener engagement and feedback, upload patterns and metadata, alongside information from multiple third-party AI detection tools. That mix decides what stays in circulation and what gets kept out of recommendations.

Spotify is also pushing clearer labels for who, or what, made a track. It said 300,000 artists are now verified with a badge that signals a real, identifiable person stands behind the music. Music uploaded by AI Personas, accounts that present as artificial acts, gets a separate badge.

AI Personas are excluded from editorial or algorithmic recommendations by default. The only way they appear in those feeds is if a listener chooses to follow that persona. Spotify has also added AI credits, a listing in the app that states where AI contributed to a song.

A beta Artist Profile Protection programme lets artists review releases delivered under their name before they appear. Spotify said the tool is meant to block impersonation and stream-farming, where unauthorised uploads trade on an established name to pull plays.

For fans, this means less clutter and more information. The songs in front of you should come from sources you can check, and the system will tell you when a machine helped make them.