On Wednesday, reports announced that it had acquired Kinzen, a company that helps it monitor its service for potentially harmful content.
Following the backlash over “The Joe Rogan Experience” in which the podcaster was accused of spreading misinformation about COVID-19, Spotify acquired as part of its efforts to deal with harmful content on its service.
Since 2020, the Dublin-based company has collaborated with Spotify to ensure the authenticity of election-related content in all regions. Kinzen’s mission has broadened since then to include countering propaganda, fake news and hate speech.
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Sarah Hoyle, Spotify’s head of trust and safety, said, “Kinzen offers a combination of tools and expertise to help us better understand the content on our platform and emerging abuse trends.”
The terms of the deal were not made public.
Spotify has pledged to be more forthcoming about its content moderation processes this year. In January, it released the first version of its platform rules for public consumption. To receive feedback on potentially harmful material, it established a Safety Advisory Council in June.
With Kinzen’s early warnings, Spotify will be able to effectively moderate content in more languages and reach a wider global audience.