‘Don’t take the damn thing’: how Spotify playlists push dangerous anti-vaccine tunes

Songs that claim Covid-19 is fake and describe the vaccines as "poison" are being actively promoted to Spotify users in playlists generated by its content recommendation engine.

Tracks found on the world's largest music streaming service explicitly encourage people not to get vaccinated and say those who do are "slaves", "sheep", and victims of Satan. Others call for an uprising, urging listeners to "fight for your life".

"They fooled the whole world with PCR testing. The thought police are patrolling. Can't you see what's unfolding?" say the lyrics of another, adding: "The whole thing ends once the people have risen."

Spotify this weekend removed several of the songs flagged to it by the Observer, which it said breached rules banning content that promotes "dangerous, false, or deceptive content about Covid-19" that may pose a threat to public health.

Before being removed, the songs could be easily found using keywords through Spotify's search tool. But they were also actively promoted to users who express interest in similar songs via automatically generated playlists, potentially bringing them to a far wider audience.

One user who played a song containing anti-vaccine lyrics was given a personalised playlist directing them to even more extreme songsOf the 50 songs in that playlist, 19 included explicit references to anti-vaccine and Covid misinformation, including claims the vaccine is being used to microchip people.

Some had references to other conspiracy theories, including claims that satanic paedophiles run the world, and that the Sandy Hook school shooting in the US, which left 26 dead, was a hoax.