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Monday Mini: Spotify Stalking · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: I'm welcome to stuff. I never told you a production
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. And today we were talking about something that
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: I am very late to the game too. Given the
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: job that we do, I'm sometimes embarrassed to admit what
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: I use to listen to things and what I don't
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: use to listen to things. But because I had recently
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: decided I wanted to make a playlist of music for
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: my very successful friend fiction thank You, I was looking
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: into Spotify, where a lot of people make these fan
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: fiction playlists, and I wanted to be able to separate
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: it out from my personal identity so that people can't
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: track me. This way, they can be like, oh, this
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: is this person who wrote this fan fiction. If I
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: associate this playlist with this fanfiction, and I just went
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: down this whole rabbit hole of how that's kind of
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: impossible to do, especially because all of my email addresses
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: except for one, are pretty clear who I am. I
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: like it would be pretty easy to find who I
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: am through that. Also, speaking of fan fiction, there is
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: a story I read where this is a whole thing
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: exchanging Spotify playlists and tracking people on Spotify playlists.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, at the beginning, before we started this, you were like,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I think you're going to know more about this. I
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: have no idea what you're talking about. This is new
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: to me.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Oh I can't wait. Yeah, you'll have to love because
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: I feel like you.
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: Have more in the certain arena of this. So okay,
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: this is great, Okay, okay.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: So I also this also kickstarted because I recently went
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: to the beach with a couple of my friends and
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: one of them sent a collaborative playlist on Spotify and
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: basically just add songs to it. And I don't really
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: use Spotify, and I didn't add any songs, but I
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: so from that, and then from this fan of fiction experience,
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: I learned about something called Spotify stalking, which is yes,
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: I'm really behind on I like I knew it. When
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: I read about it, I was like, oh, yeah, I
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: guess I've heard about that, but I didn't know it
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: was like a whole thing that people do. It's pretty
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: much what it sounds like. It's it's checking out what
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: people are listening to their playlist. From what I read,
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: it seems mostly harmless. People use it both to learn
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: more about a crush or like post breakup to check
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: in on what they're maybe doing our feeling. It was
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: really funny to read some quotes about this where people
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: will be like, Oh, I can tell he's thinking of
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: me because this this song and this playlist title.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Wo yes, Yes, the new term delulu seems to fit
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: into this entire entire Explain to me what that is delusional?
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Oh I did not know that. Okay, okay, wow, I'm
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: learning a lot today. So on Spotify, there's no way
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: for people to see who has viewed your profile, or
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: who has listened to your playlist as of yet, or
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: even who has liked or saved a playlist. You can
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: you can, and you can really learn a lot about
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: somebody based on what they're listening to. And we're going
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: to talk about that more later in how Spotify has
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: used that and when they're listening to it, especially if
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: you know them and their taste, there's a lot to
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: glean there, Like if somebody I used to joke, if
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: I'm listening to this one song, you know I'm not
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: in a good place, Like there are things you can
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: learn from people based on their music taste and when
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: they're listening to music. I also learned apparently people have
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: sex playlists, yes that I know.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: I did not know that, and that people have opinions
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: about what it says about you based on certain songs.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Apparently some people tailor their list to attract people. And
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: there are cryptic playlist titles, like they try to lure
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: people in with the titles.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: All this stuff.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: I spent way too long on my potential fan fiction
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: title playlists. And people are way more knowledgeable and invested
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: in these things than I am. They have like knowledge
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: about if you're gonna stalk them on LinkedIn, you do this.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Apparently Venmo's talking is a big thing which I want
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: to come back and talk about.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: You know. That is one thing that I find fascinating
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: that people actually have people that I'm like, why is
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: this public for y'all? Why are sharing this? Like do
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: you not know as public?
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: Yes?
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: I feel that way too When I see stuff on Venmo,
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: I'm like, do you not know or do you not care?
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Like I can stop, I will say. I have figured
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: out when people have been in relationships with whom A
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: person a friend of mine I usually told her. I
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: was like, I'm pretty sure they're dating this person because
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: of what I found on Ennvinmo and I.
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: Was correct, Yes, yes, I want to come back to
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: this one because a lot of people said, yeah, we
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: can kind of figure out what's going on in their
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: life based.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: On I'm sad to know that I'm not the smartest
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: person in the world and figured that on my own.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: So there are others who have figured it out too,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: But okay.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not trying to take anything away from you.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: You could be, but yeah, I also learned that apparently
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: good Reads gets on in on this pinterest.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: As well interest. Yeah, that seems obvious.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: It's fascinating because I was reading about the mindset behind this,
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: and a lot of a lot of psychologists were like,
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: it's it's generally harmless, Like generally it makes sense post
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: break up you're like, what are they doing? As long
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: as it's not an obsessive thing, if you're just kind
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: of like, oh.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: He's kind of like going through Instagram and who's this
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: girl like this?
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: And as long as you don't like hate on this
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: girl or yeah, right kind of yeah, then that makes sense.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: Like you're kind of just curious, like, oh, who came
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: after me? Like before before?
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Makes me said.
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but generally.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: It's viewed as kind of a natural thing that happens
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: in our sort of social media landscape, and it can
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: be very unhealthy. We're going to talk about that in
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: just a second. And some have pointed out that this
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: can be helpful in terms of making sure a person
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: you're interested in is who they say they are. We've
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: talked about that too, like before you go on a date,
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: you might be like, let me look them up. Are
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: they on social media? Can I find anything out about
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: them to make sure they're like a real person, and
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: also that they are hopefully safe to meet. So that's
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: actually single and is actually signal. Yes, that is a
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: good point. But as we talk about a lot on
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: the show, when it comes to these platforms, they can
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: be used as a tool for abuse harassment in stocking,
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: especially towards women, and Spotify is not immune from that
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: because a part of the issue here is that Spotify
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: is more of a social media platform than many people realize.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: It is heavily connected to Facebook, which we know has
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: a lot of issues around privacy and therefore so to Spotify,
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: in fact, you can connect and are encouraged to connect
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: your Spotify to your Facebook and follow friends that way
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: and see you can see what they're playing, you can
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: see their activity. It's actually really detailed. There are ways
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: to do this even if the user didn't connect their
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: account to Facebook. On top of this, until very recently,
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Spotify didn't have an option to block other users. So
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: in twenty eighteen, BuzzFeed News posted an article chronicling a
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: woman's hering experience with Spotify stalking. So she had left
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: her emotionally abusive boyfriend. She did her best to completely
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: cut him out of her life, but for over a
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: year he stalked her on social media. He created these
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: vague profiles, He posted images of locations she just visited,
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: her asked her friend and her family. She blocked him
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: on every platform she could, but there was not a
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: way to block him on Spotify. The woman told BuzzFeed
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: News that he would quote follow what I was listening
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: to and send me emails about it, convinced that what
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: I was listening to was proof I wanted to be
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: with him again. This was frightening. It revealed the depth
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: of his desperation to monitor my activity, as well as
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: his delusions about getting back together. And users had long
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: been asking for a block feature since at least twenty twelve.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: Following what people are listening to is not the only
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: way to harass or stock them either. On this platform.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Some reported X's making playlist and naming them something threatening
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: towards them. Another user reported how after getting a restraining
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: order against an abusive X, He's still harassed her on Spotify,
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: following artists that they followed and then unfollowing them when
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: they did. Another said I was the victim of a
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: violent crime, the perpetrator being someone I knew and whom
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: I can now not remove from my Spotify. While this
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: may not be an issue for you, it's a very
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: big one for me. A change dot org petition gathered
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: over seven thousand signatures, and it read I was harassed
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: and stalked online by an acquaintance who was able to
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: monitor me through my social media profiles. Even if you
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: cut off contact, the ability for harassmer to continue following
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: you is a form of intimidation in itself, as if
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: they are saying you can't stop me from watching you
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: even here, and many have pointed out the irony that
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: Spotify took very public stances against artists who had been
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: found to be sexually violent towards women, but were not
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: willing to take these steps to protect their users. So
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: Spotify does have a function called private Session, but it
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: has to be chosen from the app, and it times
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: out after a while.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: It does, yeah, so it's like for a short time, yes.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Yes, uh, and you have to choose it, so so
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: you know, you might forget, you might forget that it
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: times out and you can share a private playlist. But
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: a lot of people do want to share their music
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: with friends and followers, just not harassers and amusers. So this,
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: like with my fan fiction, I was like, I just
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: want my fan fiction people to listen to it, but
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: what if I don't want everyone else? There's no option
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: for that currently, yes, And also it's just not fair
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: to ask survivors to not use these platforms that are
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: such a part of all of our lives.
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: The reality is that we exist on the internet. It's
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: a big part of our social interactions, and it's very
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: blamed the victim to be like, well, too bad, just
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: go away.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Get off of ignore them.
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: We deserve better than that.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: And so in the face of all of this and
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty one, Spotify does have a block option, but
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: I think it's important to think about all of the
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: ways these companies are collecting her data and all the
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: ways we can be harassed online, because I believe a
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: lot of people didn't know about this, Like it's not
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: the first thing you think about when you're thinking about
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: ways people can harass you online. And I would love
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: to come back and revisit like good Reads and Venmeo
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: and LinkedIn, because I believe Goodreads was one that also
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: came up that was like, you can't block someone from
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: good It's interesting.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it really is.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: And you can learn a lot from people based on
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: the music they listen to. And according to Wired, Spotify
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: has about three hundred and sixty five million users and
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: just collects a ton of data. So this is this
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: is important. So here's a quote from them. Everything you
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: do and Spotify's web player and desktop and mobile apps
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: is tracked. Every tap, song, start, playlist, listen, search, shuffle,
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: and pause is logged. Spotify knows that you started playing
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: Lizzo's Truth Hurts at twenty three oh three, listen to
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: it for one minute, then search for Breakup and listen
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: to the entire four hours and fifty two minutes of
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: the Angry Breakup playlist without any pauses and then you've
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: got kind of a read. Don't worry that person is
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: right now.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: It's gonna be. Okay, it's gonna be.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: But it is true. It's so true. And I just
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: couldn't figure out.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: I was just going through all these hoops to figure
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: out what people could see if they come visit my profile,
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: and like, I don't know ultimately what's on there.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just sad music. It's okay, But.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Like I just cape up.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Right, but it's still worth knowing, I think. And there
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: are a lot of tutorials about how to limit what
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: Spotify tracks, and I suggest that you look them up.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: I suggest that you looked that up for all abbs
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: and services, honestly.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: But the reality is it's too late.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: It's true, but there is some stuff like you can
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: minimize it at least a little. There's a thing though,
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: like your TV might be listening to yes, So there's
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: this whole thing about Roku listening to you. And this
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: is the problem though, where individual companies no longer have limits.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: And a long time ago when policies were presented to
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Congress to limit that and to give right to consumers,
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: and that was literally blocked and or dismissed because they're like, nah,
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: we love being able to get data and to keep
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: tapped on people. They're not willing to protect the consumers
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: that way, but they don't want to restrict what.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: We can and can't see or see or do. So
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: there's this level of, like when we talked about with Bridget,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: how little the government really cares about the individual and
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: the rights. So when we see bills like the whole
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: like protect the children stuff from grooming on the interwebs,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: we know that's a bunch of lies, and that's just
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: about having power and the rights to control what we
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: look at, not protecting us. So this is where I'm like, yeah,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: there's things that you can do, and I'm a little
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: jaded that it's like every single every single app, social
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: media company that we use, every single thing with TV,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: every single thing with like Alexa, with our current laptop,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: they've all updated their terms of agreement saying that we
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: can't sue them for attracting us. Yes, you can opt
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: out of some of it, but we can turn it
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: back on whatever we want. Essentially is what every single
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: thing has updated too. Because Congress has taking out the
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: limits for these corporations so that's why I'm like, it's
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: kind of too late. If you've talked on your phone,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: you're kind of done. If you have a smart TV,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: it's over. Sorry.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but you can still turn some stuff.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: You can turn stuff off for sure, at the very least,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: at least like stop doing some things to get harassed
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: by individuals, not necessarily from the companies though. Yeah.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Well, and that's the thing like this article, as we've
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: talked about several times, like Spotify is not selling you music,
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: They're selling companies your data.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: Like that's their business model. That's what most of them
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: are doing.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Is something about Instacart. They're not actually making money off
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: of doing the services. Is actually being able to make
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: money from the data. That's why they're able to give
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: you as many deals as they.
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: Get, right exactly your the product.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: And that's the Black Mirror episode.
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: It's true.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: Here, I am just trying to be a nerd and
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: have a fan fiction playlist that can't be traced back.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: To me, like af from this.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: I just looked at my Spotify list. I was like,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: I have followers, yes, why And then I realized a
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: couple of those because we made spenty playlists. So those followers.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: We love you, Yes, we do. And that's the thing
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: I want to I hate that.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: I want to share it like it's not I don't
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: like this whole idea, like you can either. So on
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Spotify it's pretty much no one can see it or
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: everyone can see it. And I wish there was a
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: middle ground of that, but currently, as far as I know,
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: there is not. But let me know if I'm wrong,
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: if you have a workaround.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Maybe there are some savvy people out there.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: There are, but some of those savvy people freaked me
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: out because they were like, here's how you find somebody
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: on Spotify, even if they're private, and it was code
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: and I was like, oh no, a kid, there's nothing
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: on my Spotify.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: But I just don't like the idea of it. Okay,
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: don't look at it. Yeah, don't look at it unless
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: I want you to, and then you can maybe.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: Well I'm sure we'll be back because I have a
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: lot more questions after doing this research so many things.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: But in the meantime, if you have any thoughts about
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: this listeners, you can contact us. You can email us
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: a step media mom stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: on Instagram and TikTok at.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: Stephane never told you. We have a tea.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: Public store and we have a book that you can
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: get right now. That's stuff you should read books dot com.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: Thanks as always to our super producer Christina, our excited
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: producer Maya, and our controutor Joey.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
• 18:58
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