Spotify takes on neo-Nazis by scrubbing 'white power' music from streaming platform

Spotify, one of the most popular music streaming services in the world, is taking urgent action after nearly 40 "white power" hate bands were found lurking on the platform.

The same groups were at the heart of controversy back in 2014 after the Southern Poverty Law Centre, a non-profit which monitors hate groups and extremists in America, found the Nazi-linked music to be in distribution on Apple's iTunes and campaigned for its removal.

This week (14 August) an investigation by the website Digital Music News found that the majority of the groups had now migrated to Spotify.

Some hate groups were titled Ad Hominem, Dark Fury, Kill, Baby... Kill!, Prussian Blue, Skull Head, Skinfull, White Knuckle Driver and Condemned 84.

"Most of these groups are fringe, with relatively small followings and listen counts," the author of the piece. Paul Resnikoff, wrote at the time.

"In the wake of violent clashes in Charlottesville and an increasingly vocal, post-Trump white supremacy voice, the presence of white supremacy music on Spotify takes on a different light," he added.

After being informed that it was listing such music, the Swedish company took swift action.

"The music in our catalogue comes from hundreds of thousands of record companies and aggregators all over the world, and those are at first hand responsible for the content they deliver," a spokesperson said.

"Spotify takes immediate action to remove any such material as soon as it has been brought to our attention. We are glad to have been alerted to this content - and have already removed many of the bands identified today, while urgently reviewing the remainder."

Neo-Nazi hate groups and advocates of white supremacy in the US have become the centre of attention following the recent eruption of violent street rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, which claimed the life of one counter-protester – 32-year-old Heather Heyer.

Online platforms – including Google, Facebook and Reddit – have all taken steps to curb the spread of content from hate groups. One notorious neo-Nazi website, The Daily Stormer, was effectively blacklisted from the entire open internet by hosting providers.

In response to the deletions, Spotify started advertising a new music playlist – dubbed Patriotic Passion – which featured the Jimi Hendrix version of the Star Spangled Banner, Living in America by James Brown and American Woman by Lenny Kravitz, and more.

"It's a soundtrack to an America worth fighting for," the company said in a tweet.

According to statistics released by Spotify, as of July 2017 it boasted more than 60 million subscribers and more than 140 million active users.