Tag: Safety

New Spotify Video Controls Put Families and Parents in Charge

April 9, 2026

Settings User Flow

Our Chief Public Affairs Officer Dustee Jenkins shares how we’re building a more positive experience for families on Spotify.

As Spotify’s Chief Public Affairs Officer, and a parent to young children myself, I understand how navigating the digital world can feel both rewarding, and at times, a little daunting. Music, podcasts, and audiobooks can spark creativity and learning in powerful ways, and they should always be experienced in a manner that feels safe, appropriate, and right for your family. That belief sits at the center of how we design and operate Spotify: protecting young listeners, while creating positive experiences.

Our latest feature is simple. Parents on the Family plan can already switch off video for users under 13, and now we’re expanding this so the controls apply to any account on the Family plan. But even more, we’re also rolling this out to all users across Free, Premium, and Basic accounts. We believe that for families who prefer a music-focused, distraction-free environment, these tools allow them to bring the experience back to Spotify’s audio-first roots. 

Many parents have already turned on our Explicit Content Filter for their young users, and Family Plan managers have been able to switch off video for managed accounts—in fact, 60% of managed account users under 13 have video turned off by their parent or guardian. We know these tools matter and that people are using them, and we’re excited to continue making them available to even more users across Spotify.

This is just the newest control we’ve introduced, and it builds on our approach to safety and privacy. We know that more than 93% of Spotify users are excited about features that give them more control over their listening. And just as importantly, we know people want a service they feel good about being a part of their daily lives. To get there, we focus on a combination of clear global policies, advanced technology to combat harm, and meaningful, easy-to-use controls that support a positive experience on Spotify.

We also recognize that not all users will want to hear or see everything on our service. That’s why we’ve introduced age assurance systems that combine Spotify’s technology with that of our trusted partners. These tools help ensure that age-restricted features—whether they’re music videos for users 18 years and older or chats sharing music for users 16 years and older—are available for the appropriate audiences, while prioritizing user data privacy every step of the way.

When it comes to what’s on our platform, we have strict Platform Rules that prohibit harmful content, including content that exploits or harms children, and we enforce these rules across our service. We proactively detect and remove violating content, working with trusted partners and reporting to organizations like the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Just as importantly, we give users the ability to report content they feel doesn’t belong and to report or block users.

For all users, and especially families, we offer a range of tools designed to provide flexibility and control. Features like Explicit Content Filter, Restrict Listening Activity, Playback Settings, Exclude From Your Taste Profile, Marking Content As “Not Interested,” and the ability to turn off playback of specific artists all help parents and teens actively shape an experience that reflects their values. 

Our Premium Family Plan gives parents the ability to manage individual accounts for multiple individuals in a household. Managed accounts are accounts within Family Plan which have been developed specifically for our youngest listeners (under the age of 13 and up to 18, depending on your region), offering a more protected, music-only environment with limited interactivity and built-in safeguards. 

At the same time, we also know no single tool replaces ongoing conversations within families about how to use Spotify in a way that feels right to them. That’s why we also provide resources like our Parental Guide and Help Center to support informed, thoughtful decisions.

And none of this work happens in isolation. Our approach is shaped by collaboration both inside and outside Spotify. We partner with leading organizations, including the Spotify Safety Advisory Council, Thorn, WeProtect Global Alliance, the Tech Coalition, PROJECT ROCKIT, Alex Holmes, and the Internet Watch Foundation to help guide how we think about safety and privacy, especially for young users.

Our journey to ensure we’re providing a more positive experience with more controls for parents of younger listeners continues, and over the next few months you’ll see additional updates from us, including further controls for parents across all account types.

We’re grateful to be part of your family’s listening experience. And we’re committed to making sure that time on Spotify feels positive every day. We’ll keep evolving, keep listening, and keep building the tools families and young people need to feel good about the time they spend with Spotify. 

Spotify Introduces New Video Controls for Listeners

April 9, 2026

Settings User Flow

Spotify has always been about putting listeners in the driver’s seat. Today, people don’t just want more ways to spend their time; they want that time to be well spent. That’s why, from Taste Profile to Prompted Playlist, and the expansion of managed accounts to Smart Filters, we’re giving users more control over their listening experience. That belief, that time on Spotify should be intentional, personal, and rewarding, is at the core of how we build.

Spotify listeners agree, and that sense of control translates directly into value. According to a Burson survey of 8,400 respondents across 19 markets (August 27-October 3, 2025), 93% of Spotify users are excited about features that give them more control, and 92% say Spotify brings them closer to the things they love. For younger listeners, Edison Research finds that 86% of Gen Z listens to music or podcasts to help boost their mood. In a world of passive scrolling, Spotify offers something different: a more intentional experience that people can actively shape around what they love.

That’s why we’ve been hard at work on new video controls that let users better tailor their time on Spotify, either by choosing to maintain an audio-first experience or layer in a richer, video-enhanced one. Rolling out globally starting today, Family Plan managers will be able to switch video content on or off for any plan members through their subscription settings. This is something we already offer for Family Plan managed accounts for users under the age of 13 (or equivalent age in your country), and now any Family Plan member account will have video controls.

We’ll also be introducing new settings so all Premium and Basic users—whether on Individual, Duo, Family, or Student plans—and all users on our free service can control how video appears in their app. The settings update will begin rolling out to all users globally this month. This ensures that all listeners, from individuals to families, can shape an experience that feels right for them.

To access the video controls, go to Settings > Content and display, where you can easily switch Canvas looping visuals or videos for music or podcasts on or off. Once you’ve chosen your preferences, they’ll apply on mobile, desktop, web, TV, or wherever you use Spotify. Users will still see video ads, as well as Canvas-like visuals on some audio ads. Whether you want a visual experience or an audio one, Spotify adapts to you.

Listeners can now choose exactly how they want to engage with the videos that amplify music, podcasts, and audiobooks on Spotify. Control changes everything. Time stops feeling wasted and starts feeling owned. We’ve got more great features in the works, so Spotify remains a place where people love to spend time discovering their new favorite artist, creator, or author. In the meantime, you can listen to or watch our Co-CEO Gustav Söderström share more about how and why we build intentionally.

How Spotify Approaches Safety With Sarah Hoyle, Global Head of Trust and Safety

April 19, 2024

Spotify’s mission is to unlock the potential of human creativity by giving a million artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by it. In support of that endeavor, our global teams work around the clock to ensure that the experience along the way is safe and enjoyable for creators, listeners, and advertisers. 

While there is some user-generated content on Spotify, the vast majority of listening time is spent on licensed content. Regardless of who created the content, our top priority is to allow our community to connect directly with the music, podcasts, and audiobooks they love. When we think about the safety aspect of this, it can be helpful to do so in the context of seeing a show at a performance venue.

Like a performance venue, Spotify hosts different types of shows across a variety of genres. Not every show may be suitable for all audiences or in line with everyone’s unique tastes. Just like people select which shows they want to see, Spotify provides opportunities for users to seek out and curate content that they like and that is appropriate for their preferences. For example, users can skip music tagged by creators or rights holders as “explicit” by using our content toggle. Mobile users can block artists or songs they wish to hide and exclude playlists from their taste profiles or use the “not interested” button to better control their experiences.

While Spotify strongly supports enabling creative expression and listener choice, this does not mean that anything goes. In the same way that a venue has rules to ensure that shows run smoothly and are safe, Spotify has Platform Rules to guide what’s acceptable content and behavior on our platform. Bad behavior at a concert can lead to things like backstage access being revoked or, in egregious situations, someone being kicked out of the venue. Breaking Spotify’s rules can have consequences like removal, reduced distribution, and/or demonetization. We will also remove content that violates the law and/or our Terms of Service. Creators or rights holders may also choose to remove content themselves.

Measures we continue to take around responsible content recommendations and search also play key roles in creating a safe and enjoyable experience. For example, product and engineering teams across the company work with Trust & Safety to conduct impact assessments that allow us to evaluate and better mitigate potential algorithmic harms and inequities. We’ve also been introducing search warnings and in-app messaging to users searching for suicide, self-harm, and disordered eating-related content, which link to Spotify’s Mental Health Resources page. This work is being done in partnership with experts like Ditch the Label and the Jed Foundation with the goal of connecting potentially at-risk users with trusted help resources. 

Keeping our platform safe is a challenging job and, as the landscape evolves, we’re committed to evolving along with it. Safety is a company-wide responsibility and our efforts involve ongoing coordination between engineers, product managers, data scientists, researchers, lawyers, and social impact experts, as well as the policy and enforcement experts in Trust & Safety. Many of the folks on these teams have long careers in online safety, as well as in fields like human rights, social work, academia, health care, and consulting. We have also established an internal Safety Leadership group that regularly brings executives from different departments together to help ensure awareness of safety needs and monitor progress on our efforts. 

To complement our in-house expertise, we also seek counsel and feedback from third-party experts around the world, including our Safety Advisory Council, to ensure we’re considering multiple points of view when shaping our safety approach. In 2022, we invested in the local and linguistic expertise of start-up Kinzen, now known as the Content Safety Analysis team within Spotify, which has a nuanced understanding of the global safety landscape and works proactively to deliver a safe and enjoyable experience across our content offerings. 

Click here to learn more about Spotify’s approach to safety.