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Comment by deng | Hacker News Reader

PSA for people with kids: Parental controls and QA in Spotify are a bad joke.

I found out the hard way that Spotify features tons of videos and that you cannot disable them. See for instance

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5KS759AlVGVj34OHPbcx1p

There's also ton of dubious stuff in the "ASMR" category you probably wouldn't want your kid have access to and that is not caught by the "Explicit" filter, see for instance (NSFW!)

https://open.spotify.com/artist/3AxgfSNuDgYnz54lT4jkmT

Needless to say, I immediately canceled the Spotify family account.

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This is the reason we cancelled Spotify and moved to Apple Music.

Not only do they have a bunch of adult content hidden in there, but they also have tons of "video podcasts" available via search that are compilations of TikTok and streamer trash (like the one you linked). So if you are trying to keep young kids away from TikTok, trash-level Minecraft streamers, etc, but assume Spotify is safe because it is just music, your kids will find it and start getting hooked on TikTok via Spotify. It's really terrible and insidious. It feels like the tech industry is conspiring to get small children hooked.

There is a thread several years old on Spotify support where people have been complaining about this and they have done nothing. They are prioritizing engagement via crappy podcasts over delivering a music product that works for a range of customers (families, etc).

BTW, Apple Music has been totally fine as a replacement. I actually like it more. And there is a web app that will move all your old playlists over in minutes, so there's very little hassle in switching.

> There is a thread several years old on Spotify support where people have been complaining about this and they have done nothing. They are prioritizing engagement via crappy podcasts over delivering a music product that works for a range of customers (families, etc).

Yes, see for instance

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Add-quot-remove-...

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Premium-Family/How-can-I-fi...

I also remember that 2-3 years ago it was very easy to find hardcore porn images on Spotify, but at least they have fixed that, as this could have gotten them into real trouble. But otherwise, I think it's clear that Spotify has zero interest in disabling videos.

It's the same with Youtube, I actually had to resort to a third-party application (Freetube) to set up a curated list of channels for my kid he's allowed to watch, because it's not possible to do that in Youtube itself...

> It feels like the tech industry is conspiring to get small children hooked.

I think there's ample evidence that this is indeed the case.

Holy crap, that's straight up porn - no ASMR there. This is the same crap that used to be on those expensive phone services where you'd call and get charged insane amounts for.

Also not ASMR in the slightest.

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