Spotify, SoundCloud and other platforms have pulled the song, but its spread underscores the challenges tech platforms face in removing content that violate their policies.
Spotify, SoundCloud and other tech platforms have worked to remove a new song from Ye that praises Adolf Hitler, but the song and its video have continued to proliferate online including across X, where it has racked up millions of views.
On various mainstream and alternative tech platforms this week, Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has been able to share his latest song, titled “Heil Hitler,” along with its companion title, “WW3,” which similarly glorifies Hitler, the architect of the Holocaust.
While some platforms have taken steps to attempt to pull down the song, others have seemingly let it spread freely.
First of all, these are private companies, not governments. They can technically do whatever TF they want, and we probably shouldn’t have ceded so much power to them.
…Anyway, I think you have a point. Or at least part of one.
It’s reasonable to draw red lines like “no nazism on our platform.” But at the end of the day Spotify and such can ban whatever they want, with no repercussions since it’s basically a network of defacto, legally shielded monopolies.
So how would we feel if, say, they started banning podcasts a little too popular and too critical of the president?
In other words, banning nazism as a policy is fine, but arbitrarily banning what looks bad to them is indeed going to be a problem.