Since I’ve already previously ranted on the subject, the low down is that Spotify users have been requesting a Spotify explicit content filter for years on the Spotify forums. Six years after the initial request, Spotify has posted that they are now testing some semblance of the feature on iOS devices.
Hey Spotify Staff here. We want to update you about a test that is currently running for iOS users.
If you have Spotify Premium on an iOS device (or Spotify Free on an iPad) you will have an Explicit Content filter option. Just go to Settings > Explicit Content for a toggle to enable or disable Explicit Content.
When Explicit Content is disabled, tracks marked as ‘explicit’ appear greyed out and will be skipped over by Spotify. The setting applies only for that individual account and per device. Explicit Content is also enabled by default.
Please note: Our explicit content metadata is not perfect, as not all songs are marked “explicit” by labels or rights-owners. Consequently this test is unable to guarantee that no explicit content will play even when it is disabled.
Unfortunately, it’s not exactly what users were asking for. While this looks like it will disable Explicit Content, according to users who are testing it, it doesn’t replace the Explicit Content in playlists (even Spotify promoted playlists) with clean radio versions of the song instead but rather just skips over the song altogether. As you can see in the screenshots below, the filter is enabled via a simple toggle and greys out access to songs labelled as explicit.
While it’s only in testing on iOS devices, hopefully, it will hit the Android and Windows versions of the apps as well in short order, especially considering Android devices account for 85% of worldwide smartphone adoption. As Spotify mentioned, even though many of their songs are already marked as explicit, it’s not 100% foolproof. As part of the testing, they’re also testing a method for users to pitch in and mark incorrectly tagged songs. NOTE: this feature isn’t available on Android devices as of yet so we’re assuming it’s part of the testing currently taking place on iOS devices.
If you spot a song that is incorrectly tagged as explicit or needs an explicit tag, please help us by following these steps:
- Click the three dots next to the song
- Click Report Explicit Content
- You’ll then get a message that says ‘Thank you for reporting’.
You can also sign into our metadata crowdsourcing platform Line-In to report a song as Explicit.
Please note this does not mark the content as explicit for the user but only collects data at the moment.
After six long years of complaining, it looks like Spotify is finally listening to its users with the adoption of an explicit content filter. It’s definitely a welcome addition, especially considering they have a family plan subscription option as well. While it’s on a per device, per user basis at the moment, once they get the kinks worked out, perhaps they’ll add account-level and parental controls (another long time top request) and the like as it sounds like there’s no way to prevent a user from re-enabling explicit content on a device.
What do you think about Spotify finally testing an explicit content filter, if only on iOS devices at the moment? Is it a feature you’ve been waiting for the company to implement? Let us know in the comments below or on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook.
[button link=”https://community.spotify.com/t5/iOS-iPhone-iPad/Explicit-Content-filter-test/m-p/4444364#M98906″ icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Spotify Forums[/button]
