Spotify to suspend political advertising in 2020 ahead of US elections

Online music streaming platform Spotify stated that it will suspend political advertisements on its platform from early 2020. According to reports, Spotify is the latest online company to take such a decision to suspend false information before the US 2020 Presidential elections. The Sweden based company has a lot of users in the United States and it has followed in the footsteps of Twitter who took the decision to ban the majority of the political ads and Google who decided to put a limit on how advertisements were targeted.

Spotify to review their decision

While talking to an international media outlet, a representative of Spotify said that the online platform will suspend all the selling of advertising of a political nature, adding that the suspension will also include political advertising content in their ad-supported tier and also in Spotify original. The representative further added that currently, they did not have the means to properly check and filter out content, adding that the company will review their decision as they continue to grow.

According to reports, it is not known how much Spotify earns from political advertisements but a few experts are of the opinion that the online platform is the perfect way to reach young voters. Online platforms have been under pressure to restrict the flow of false information coming from politicians, with the most notable example being US President Donald Trump ahead of the 2020 Presidential elections.

Read: Thousands Of UK Political Ads Go Missing From Facebook Database

Read: Google Tightens Political Ads Policy To Thwart Abuse

Instagram expands fact-checking program

Instagram recently expanded its fact-checking program around the world. Instagram is now letting fact-checking organisations globally to evaluate and estimate the nature and quality of misinformation on the platform. Starting from May this year, the social networking company started working with third-party fact-checkers in the United States to help identify, review and label false information. Instagram said that these partners independently assess false information and minimise the spreading of disinformation.

Instagram said when content has been rated as false or partly false by a third-party fact-checker, it reduced such content from spreading on the platform by removing it from the Explore and hashtag pages. In addition, Instagram said such content will be labelled so users could decide for themselves whether they want to read, trust or share.

Read: Federal Appeals Court Rules Against Political Ad Law

Read: Spotify Uses 'Behind The Lyrics' Feature To Troll 'Do They Know It's Christmas'

(With inputs from agencies)