Mystery bots on Spotify modifying playlists to boost 'unknown' artists and their numbers

Spotify users are being harassed by bots. These mysterious bots, bearing feminine names such as Ashley, Emma, Elsie, and so on, are messing with playlists. The accounts seem to be deleting several entries, and adding songs from “unknown” artists.

Multiple Spotify users have complained about bots messing with their playlists. These accounts are masquerading as normal users and are taking control of public, collaborative playlists. They are manipulating the playlists without the creators’ consent. Some independent musicians have attempted to investigate the incidents involving invasive bots on Spotify.

TikTokker and musician @jw__francis managed to spot several collaborative playlists tampered with by bots. Although Spotify has the power to weed out spam and mischievous accounts, these bots seem to be evading detection by making their activities look normal. Moreover, the very nature of collaborative playlists makes it difficult to prove the bots are harassing users. These playlists are basically open to all Spotify users and their friends, and they can curate songs in real-time together.

By observing the activities of the bots, it appears some accounts are attempting to artificially boost the listening stats of a single artist's music. The simplest way to achieve this is by adding their songs to as many public playlists as possible and hoping Spotify users play them. Francis followed a bot named Ashley, and discovered it was “exclusively engaging with and adding the music of one Spotify account called Pesukone,” reported Mashable. Pesukone’s Instagram account mentions it is a “Finnish collective devoted to highlighting unknown musicians”.

Spotify is aware of such bots. However, the platform has refused to take down accounts suspected to be bots promoting certain artists or songs. Collaborative playlists don't have an "invite-only" setting. It is possible that future updates could allow playlist makers to change the editing permissions on collaborative playlists. But until then, the only solution is to manually remove each song that the bots have added. Removing the public settings on the collaborative playlists will also prevent anyone from messing with them.

Source: Mashable