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Spotify wants to keep politics out of its music. As the year winds down, the music streaming service announced that it will no longer be selling or running political ads on its ad-supported tier in 2020. The news comes ahead of a time where the 2020 presidential election cycle is about to heat up.
Approximately 141 million users listen to Spotify’s free service which includes ads.
“At this point in time, we do not yet have the necessary level of robustness in our processes, systems and tools to responsibly validate and review this content. We will reassess this decision as we continue to evolve our capabilities,” a Spotify spokesperson told CNN Business.
According to Ad Age, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and the Republican National Committee were previously advertising on Spotify.
The United States is the only region where Spotify sells political ads.
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The decision to move away from selling political ads in 2020 comes shortly after a similar decision from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Twitter previously announced they will no longer sell political ads globally.
“We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought,” Dorsey tweeted at the time of the announcement.
“A political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet. Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people. We believe this decision should not be compromised by money. While internet advertising is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers, that power brings significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence votes to affect the lives of millions.”
LinkedIn, Pinterest and Twitch have also banned political ads ahead of the 2020 election cycle.
