Spotify buys content moderation company Kinzen

Spotify said the technology that Kinzen brings combines machine learning and human expertise – backed by analysis from leading local academics and journalists – will help analyse potential harmful content and hate speech in multiple languages and countries around the world.

“We’ve long had an impactful and collaborative partnership with Kinzen and its exceptional team,” Spotify global head of public affairs Dustee Jenkins said. “Now, working together as one, we’ll be able to even further improve our ability to detect and address harmful content, and importantly, in a way that better considers local context.”

Having injected billions into social audio, podcasting, and audiobooks, the music streaming giant has been forced to reckon with challenges such as misinformation, hateful content, violent content, violent extremism and dangerous organisations.

The development follows Spotify's recently formed Safety Advisory Council in June after it received backlash for failing to deal with concerns relating to its leading podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience.

Spotify and Kinzen, headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, first entered into partnership in 2020. Spotify has, however, not made public the exact mandate of Kinzen after the acquisition.

“Given the complexity of analysing audio content in hundreds of languages and dialects, and the challenges in effectively evaluating the nuance and intent of that content, the acquisition of Kinzen should help better understand the abuse landscape and identify emerging threats on the platform,” Spotify said.

Spotify’s head of trust and safety, Sarah Hoyle, added: “The combination of tools and expert insights is Kinzen’s unique strength that we see as essential to identifying emerging abuse trends in markets and moderating potentially dangerous content at scale. This expansion of our team, combined with the launch of our Safety Advisory Council, demonstrates the proactive approach we’re taking in this important space.”

It will be interesting to see how Kinzen will deal with controversial but highly popular programmes such as The Joe Rogan Experience that Spotify reportedly paid $200 million to its rights.