In what is shaping up to be a widespread privacy controversy, Spotify has come under scrutiny following allegations by users that the music streaming service made their private playlists public without their consent.
This situation is reminiscent of a similar issue flagged back in March, raising concerns over a possible pattern of an ongoing privacy issue.
The controversy began when users reported this unexpected change to Twitter and Spotify's community forums.
"Apparently @SpotifyUSA silently made all of my private playlists public without my consent. The same happened to my wife too," tweeted Microsoft Edge Project Manager William Devereux.
"That's an absolutely unacceptable privacy violation. Anyone else noticed this happen recently? I haven't changed any privacy settings."
There are similar reports on Spotify's forum in March, with one of the affected users being a music curator who uses Spotify professionally.
"I have revisited some lists made a month or so ago and they are all public now. Looking at more and they are now public as well!," wrote the user on Spotify's forums.
"Why has this happened? is there a way to make bulk lists private? I don't want to spend days of my life changing them one by one, there are over 1400 lists and I cant invoice for that time so it will take away from may wages."
Back in March, a user proposed a theory stating, "The actual settings of our playlists haven't changed. What was formerly known as 'private' and 'public' playlists are now all called 'public', since they weren't actually private previously, as they could be shared through a link."
The theory further suggested a new level of truly private playlists that could not be accessed by others even with a link and only playlists marked as 'on profile' could be found via search or in the 'Discovered on' section on artist pages.
Despite the theory, Spotify users insist their recent experiences indicate a different issue. They affirm that their playlists were initially marked as private upon creation and were inexplicably made public without their knowledge or permission.
In response to the reports in March, a Spotify moderator stated, "Spotify doesn't make such bulk changes and will not mess around with the settings of your collection/personal account unless you have requested this explicitly...".
However, this has done little to alleviate users' concerns, and it remains uncertain if the two issues are linked or entirely separate incidents.
We have reached out to Spotify about these reports but did not receive a reply at the time of this publishing
Comments
NoneRain - 11 months ago
"it's a huge privacy violation" lmao
h_b_s - 11 months ago
It doesn't sound like a huge issue... till you realize that it may expose LGBTQ+ people, or the mentally ill, by the songs they listen to. For people that aren't 'out' for a very good reason, this could destroy lives - perhaps get them killed.
Arguably it's a bad idea to even hint at your sexuality in such countries outside of very private local computer systems, but not everyone is that computer savvy. Spotify should be taking care not to expose things like this regardless of whose money they're taking - assuming what's going on isn't just bad UI design.
gryphenwings - 11 months ago
I find it interesting that the people who like to believe that a violation is trivial are the same one's who go full Karen when their privacy is violated. If a company/person says their going to do something, then the reasonable expectation is that they will do just that.
arphynion - 11 months ago
Well this certainly did not happen to me but I don't see what making playlists private does anyway. I seriously doubt anyone's sexual identity could be exposed through their playlists. That statement alone is pidgeon holing any group to which that commenter is referring to and therefore could be viewed (the statement itself) as insulting. As if to imply that LGBTQ people listen to a specific set type of music that identifies them?! Okay.
I have a gay friend that literally listens to nothing but soundtracks to horror movies and horror video games only. OMG that makes them gay and they could be found out!
I just can't get over how sensationlist this is. A select few people somehow's playlists got reset to public and it's explosively horrible and almost downright terrorism; oh no! Um chill the f out.
This sounds like a unique situation that's bound to a device type or OS type and how this update was applied or when the user themselves chose to do it, could have coincided with some other various system update or conflict that's unique to their device that caused this. Still, some of the blame could be spotify, but ...
This is not some huge damning event that's merit for legal action, get real. It's just playlists. And nothing more.
Now, remember the days when other users on your friends list on Spotify could send you private messages like a messaging app? They ended that real quick after a lady was being terrorized by a stalker or maybe it was her ex. That's frikkin privacy violations. Not playlists being made public on accident.
Laughing out loud seriously as I conclude this.
ShadowDeath - 11 months ago
Don't worry about the lack of 2FA though.
Sgtkeebler - 11 months ago
I checked all of my Playlists and they are still private. I wonder if these people either forgot to make their Playlist private or Spotify saw they they could be really popular and made them intentionally public.
jamesatpodnews - 11 months ago
Worthwhile remembering that podcasts can be in private playlists, including self-help podcasts.
The title of a podcast may reveal that someone is fighting alcoholism, is exploring their sexuality, or is fighting mental or physical illness.