Radio stations are more careful about music selection than record stores, because they are seen as choosing their music making it an expression of their opinion and not their customers. They play it next to messages from sponsors who don't want to be associated with everything and so on. Spotify is obviously closer to record store than radio station, but they do have commercial messages.
(A note for younger readers, a "record store" was a kind of brick and mortar shop where songs were sold engraved onto physical artifacts).
But (and this I think is key): Even record stores have always entirely stayed away from some material. Not just the material that is illegal, but also material that is simply offensive or objectionable. They put Parental Advisory stickers on rap albums, but no main street record stores carried nazi music, for example, even though there was never a shortage of it, and it was never outlawed in many countries. If a band was known as a nazi music band, they weren't showing up on record store shelves with their non-nazi album either. That is - they were boycotted as artists, not merely some objectionable content. I'd put Alex Jones (but not many more of JRE guests) in the "Nazi band" bucket. The ones that record stores didn't have on shelves because customers, owners, employees etc wouldn't stand for it.
My point is: this isn't some "woke" phenomenon of cancel culture. It's the way it's always been.
I think the issue is that there’s no single moral authority and if I expect companies to meet my moral standards then maybe one day they meet someone else’s and that will suck. I’d rather companies not try to match what I exactly have and stick to some more objective level like what’s legal/illegal. That’s still subjective but less likely to change.
> should Spotify be forced
Of course not, but I’m suggesting that Spotify not try to micromanage content by removing specific content from artists for arbitrary reasons.
I’m not talking about legal responsibility, I’m taking about them not being jerks and positively contributing to society. I think it’s a net negative for society when Spotify tries to remove stuff like Alex Jones. Or if they were to remove explicit lyrics and curse words.
I’d rather have a protocol that doesn’t differentiate and just lets me choose.
I remember AOL before the web was widespread. It sucked and they literally blocked curse words from their pages. The web was better because it let users choose. Stuff was still taken down when criminal, but in general, I didn’t have to worry whether AOL “promoted content on their platform.”
Spotify is like the legal version of Napster, but Napster was better because it didn’t try to limit or promote content. I liked that it just connected people together and let me discover music. Any lists or promotion was a layer applied on top of Napster.
I think the concept of promoting is also something I don’t want. I don’t want Spotify promoting specific content.
Comically, stuff like this moves me closer to piracy as it just gives a better user experience.