Spotify, the most significant music streaming and podcast platform, is again under a lot of heat. An investigation by Swedish news publication Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) has revealed a big hole in the system. If anyone thought click farms and similar Internet-enabled types of fraud were limited to the Russian “Internet Research Agency,” the threat is now coming from the heart of Scandinavia, a staunch bastion of liberal democracy.
The bombshell post was published on September 5, 2023: Gang criminals reveal: Wash money on Spotify. This time, we hear the news from the criminals themselves.
It is not the first time Spotify is under fire. A few years ago, Daniel Ek, the company’s co-founder and CEO, made a strange move of putting €100M into an AI defense startup called Helsing under the guise of supporting democracies. The decision was faced with backlash from musicians around the world. It could have helped if the man behind the biggest platform for artists provided a better motivation as to why a military firm is where his money should be. This and a combination of other reasons led me to quit the platform.
