October 2, 2023 • 19 mins
The Internet is rife with ways to stalk people. One that many don't realize is called Spotify Stalking.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm welcome to stuff. I never told you a production
of iHeartRadio. And today we were talking about something that
I am very late to the game too. Given the
job that we do, I'm sometimes embarrassed to admit what
(00:29):
I use to listen to things and what I don't
use to listen to things. But because I had recently
decided I wanted to make a playlist of music for
my very successful friend fiction thank You, I was looking
into Spotify, where a lot of people make these fan
(00:54):
fiction playlists, and I wanted to be able to separate
it out from my personal identity so that people can't
track me. This way, they can be like, oh, this
is this person who wrote this fan fiction. If I
(01:16):
associate this playlist with this fanfiction, and I just went
down this whole rabbit hole of how that's kind of
impossible to do, especially because all of my email addresses
except for one, are pretty clear who I am. I
like it would be pretty easy to find who I
am through that. Also, speaking of fan fiction, there is
(01:39):
a story I read where this is a whole thing
exchanging Spotify playlists and tracking people on Spotify playlists.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Okay, at the beginning, before we started this, you were like,
I think you're going to know more about this. I
have no idea what you're talking about. This is new
to me.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Oh I can't wait. Yeah, you'll have to love because
I feel like you.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Have more in the certain arena of this. So okay,
this is great, Okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
So I also this also kickstarted because I recently went
to the beach with a couple of my friends and
one of them sent a collaborative playlist on Spotify and
basically just add songs to it. And I don't really
use Spotify, and I didn't add any songs, but I
(02:24):
so from that, and then from this fan of fiction experience,
I learned about something called Spotify stalking, which is yes,
I'm really behind on I like I knew it. When
I read about it, I was like, oh, yeah, I
guess I've heard about that, but I didn't know it
was like a whole thing that people do. It's pretty
(02:44):
much what it sounds like. It's it's checking out what
people are listening to their playlist. From what I read,
it seems mostly harmless. People use it both to learn
more about a crush or like post breakup to check
in on what they're maybe doing our feeling. It was
really funny to read some quotes about this where people
will be like, Oh, I can tell he's thinking of
(03:06):
me because this this song and this playlist title.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Wo yes, Yes, the new term delulu seems to fit
into this entire entire Explain to me what that is delusional?
Oh I did not know that. Okay, okay, wow, I'm
(03:30):
learning a lot today. So on Spotify, there's no way
for people to see who has viewed your profile, or
who has listened to your playlist as of yet, or
even who has liked or saved a playlist. You can
you can, and you can really learn a lot about
somebody based on what they're listening to. And we're going
to talk about that more later in how Spotify has
(03:51):
used that and when they're listening to it, especially if
you know them and their taste, there's a lot to
glean there, Like if somebody I used to joke, if
I'm listening to this one song, you know I'm not
in a good place, Like there are things you can
learn from people based on their music taste and when
they're listening to music. I also learned apparently people have
(04:12):
sex playlists, yes that I know.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
I did not know that, and that people have opinions
about what it says about you based on certain songs.
Apparently some people tailor their list to attract people. And
there are cryptic playlist titles, like they try to lure
(04:36):
people in with the titles.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
All this stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I spent way too long on my potential fan fiction
title playlists. And people are way more knowledgeable and invested
in these things than I am. They have like knowledge
about if you're gonna stalk them on LinkedIn, you do this.
Apparently Venmo's talking is a big thing which I want
(05:03):
to come back and talk about.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
You know. That is one thing that I find fascinating
that people actually have people that I'm like, why is
this public for y'all? Why are sharing this? Like do
you not know as public?
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
I feel that way too When I see stuff on Venmo,
I'm like, do you not know or do you not care?
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Like I can stop, I will say. I have figured
out when people have been in relationships with whom A
person a friend of mine I usually told her. I
was like, I'm pretty sure they're dating this person because
of what I found on Ennvinmo and I.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Was correct, Yes, yes, I want to come back to
this one because a lot of people said, yeah, we
can kind of figure out what's going on in their
life based.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
On I'm sad to know that I'm not the smartest
person in the world and figured that on my own.
So there are others who have figured it out too,
But okay.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Yeah, I'm not trying to take anything away from you.
You could be, but yeah, I also learned that apparently
good Reads gets on in on this pinterest.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
As well interest. Yeah, that seems obvious.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
It's fascinating because I was reading about the mindset behind this,
and a lot of a lot of psychologists were like,
it's it's generally harmless, Like generally it makes sense post
break up you're like, what are they doing? As long
as it's not an obsessive thing, if you're just kind
of like, oh.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
He's kind of like going through Instagram and who's this
girl like this?
Speaker 2 (06:36):
And as long as you don't like hate on this
girl or yeah, right kind of yeah, then that makes sense.
Like you're kind of just curious, like, oh, who came
after me? Like before before?
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Makes me said.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Yeah, yeah, but generally.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
It's viewed as kind of a natural thing that happens
in our sort of social media landscape, and it can
be very unhealthy. We're going to talk about that in
just a second. And some have pointed out that this
can be helpful in terms of making sure a person
you're interested in is who they say they are. We've
talked about that too, like before you go on a date,
(07:19):
you might be like, let me look them up. Are
they on social media? Can I find anything out about
them to make sure they're like a real person, and
also that they are hopefully safe to meet. So that's
actually single and is actually signal. Yes, that is a
(07:41):
good point. But as we talk about a lot on
the show, when it comes to these platforms, they can
be used as a tool for abuse harassment in stocking,
especially towards women, and Spotify is not immune from that
because a part of the issue here is that Spotify
(08:01):
is more of a social media platform than many people realize.
It is heavily connected to Facebook, which we know has
a lot of issues around privacy and therefore so to Spotify,
in fact, you can connect and are encouraged to connect
your Spotify to your Facebook and follow friends that way
and see you can see what they're playing, you can
see their activity. It's actually really detailed. There are ways
(08:25):
to do this even if the user didn't connect their
account to Facebook. On top of this, until very recently,
Spotify didn't have an option to block other users. So
in twenty eighteen, BuzzFeed News posted an article chronicling a
woman's hering experience with Spotify stalking. So she had left
(08:45):
her emotionally abusive boyfriend. She did her best to completely
cut him out of her life, but for over a
year he stalked her on social media. He created these
vague profiles, He posted images of locations she just visited,
her asked her friend and her family. She blocked him
on every platform she could, but there was not a
way to block him on Spotify. The woman told BuzzFeed
(09:09):
News that he would quote follow what I was listening
to and send me emails about it, convinced that what
I was listening to was proof I wanted to be
with him again. This was frightening. It revealed the depth
of his desperation to monitor my activity, as well as
his delusions about getting back together. And users had long
(09:31):
been asking for a block feature since at least twenty twelve.
Following what people are listening to is not the only
way to harass or stock them either. On this platform.
Some reported X's making playlist and naming them something threatening
towards them. Another user reported how after getting a restraining
order against an abusive X, He's still harassed her on Spotify,
(09:55):
following artists that they followed and then unfollowing them when
they did. Another said I was the victim of a
violent crime, the perpetrator being someone I knew and whom
I can now not remove from my Spotify. While this
may not be an issue for you, it's a very
big one for me. A change dot org petition gathered
(10:17):
over seven thousand signatures, and it read I was harassed
and stalked online by an acquaintance who was able to
monitor me through my social media profiles. Even if you
cut off contact, the ability for harassmer to continue following
you is a form of intimidation in itself, as if
they are saying you can't stop me from watching you
(10:37):
even here, and many have pointed out the irony that
Spotify took very public stances against artists who had been
found to be sexually violent towards women, but were not
willing to take these steps to protect their users. So
Spotify does have a function called private Session, but it
(11:00):
has to be chosen from the app, and it times
out after a while.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
It does, yeah, so it's like for a short time, yes.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yes, uh, and you have to choose it, so so
you know, you might forget, you might forget that it
times out and you can share a private playlist. But
a lot of people do want to share their music
with friends and followers, just not harassers and amusers. So this,
like with my fan fiction, I was like, I just
want my fan fiction people to listen to it, but
(11:31):
what if I don't want everyone else? There's no option
for that currently, yes, And also it's just not fair
to ask survivors to not use these platforms that are
such a part of all of our lives.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
The reality is that we exist on the internet. It's
a big part of our social interactions, and it's very
blamed the victim to be like, well, too bad, just
go away.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Get off of ignore them.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
We deserve better than that.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
And so in the face of all of this and
twenty twenty one, Spotify does have a block option, but
I think it's important to think about all of the
ways these companies are collecting her data and all the
ways we can be harassed online, because I believe a
lot of people didn't know about this, Like it's not
the first thing you think about when you're thinking about
ways people can harass you online. And I would love
(12:30):
to come back and revisit like good Reads and Venmeo
and LinkedIn, because I believe Goodreads was one that also
came up that was like, you can't block someone from
good It's interesting.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
And you can learn a lot from people based on
the music they listen to. And according to Wired, Spotify
has about three hundred and sixty five million users and
just collects a ton of data. So this is this
is important. So here's a quote from them. Everything you
do and Spotify's web player and desktop and mobile apps
(13:06):
is tracked. Every tap, song, start, playlist, listen, search, shuffle,
and pause is logged. Spotify knows that you started playing
Lizzo's Truth Hurts at twenty three oh three, listen to
it for one minute, then search for Breakup and listen
to the entire four hours and fifty two minutes of
the Angry Breakup playlist without any pauses and then you've
(13:27):
got kind of a read. Don't worry that person is
right now.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
It's gonna be. Okay, it's gonna be.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
But it is true. It's so true. And I just
couldn't figure out.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
I was just going through all these hoops to figure
out what people could see if they come visit my profile,
and like, I don't know ultimately what's on there.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Yeah, it's just sad music. It's okay, But.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Like I just cape up.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Right, but it's still worth knowing, I think. And there
are a lot of tutorials about how to limit what
Spotify tracks, and I suggest that you look them up.
I suggest that you looked that up for all abbs
and services, honestly.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
But the reality is it's too late.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
It's true, but there is some stuff like you can
minimize it at least a little. There's a thing though,
like your TV might be listening to yes, So there's
this whole thing about Roku listening to you. And this
is the problem though, where individual companies no longer have limits.
And a long time ago when policies were presented to
(14:42):
Congress to limit that and to give right to consumers,
and that was literally blocked and or dismissed because they're like, nah,
we love being able to get data and to keep
tapped on people. They're not willing to protect the consumers
that way, but they don't want to restrict what.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
We can and can't see or see or do. So
there's this level of, like when we talked about with Bridget,
how little the government really cares about the individual and
the rights. So when we see bills like the whole
like protect the children stuff from grooming on the interwebs,
we know that's a bunch of lies, and that's just
(15:19):
about having power and the rights to control what we
look at, not protecting us. So this is where I'm like, yeah,
there's things that you can do, and I'm a little
jaded that it's like every single every single app, social
media company that we use, every single thing with TV,
every single thing with like Alexa, with our current laptop,
(15:44):
they've all updated their terms of agreement saying that we
can't sue them for attracting us. Yes, you can opt
out of some of it, but we can turn it
back on whatever we want. Essentially is what every single
thing has updated too. Because Congress has taking out the
limits for these corporations so that's why I'm like, it's
(16:04):
kind of too late. If you've talked on your phone,
you're kind of done. If you have a smart TV,
it's over. Sorry.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Yeah, yeah, but you can still turn some stuff.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
You can turn stuff off for sure, at the very least,
at least like stop doing some things to get harassed
by individuals, not necessarily from the companies though. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Well, and that's the thing like this article, as we've
talked about several times, like Spotify is not selling you music,
They're selling companies your data.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Like that's their business model. That's what most of them
are doing.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Is something about Instacart. They're not actually making money off
of doing the services. Is actually being able to make
money from the data. That's why they're able to give
you as many deals as they.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Get, right exactly your the product.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
And that's the Black Mirror episode.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
It's true.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Here, I am just trying to be a nerd and
have a fan fiction playlist that can't be traced back.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
To me, like af from this.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
I just looked at my Spotify list. I was like,
I have followers, yes, why And then I realized a
couple of those because we made spenty playlists. So those followers.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
We love you, Yes, we do. And that's the thing
I want to I hate that.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
I want to share it like it's not I don't
like this whole idea, like you can either. So on
Spotify it's pretty much no one can see it or
everyone can see it. And I wish there was a
middle ground of that, but currently, as far as I know,
there is not. But let me know if I'm wrong,
(17:53):
if you have a workaround.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Maybe there are some savvy people out there.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
There are, but some of those savvy people freaked me
out because they were like, here's how you find somebody
on Spotify, even if they're private, and it was code
and I was like, oh no, a kid, there's nothing
on my Spotify.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
But I just don't like the idea of it. Okay,
don't look at it. Yeah, don't look at it unless
I want you to, and then you can maybe.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Well I'm sure we'll be back because I have a
lot more questions after doing this research so many things.
But in the meantime, if you have any thoughts about
this listeners, you can contact us. You can email us
a step media mom stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You
can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or
on Instagram and TikTok at.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Stephane never told you. We have a tea.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Public store and we have a book that you can
get right now. That's stuff you should read books dot com.
Thanks as always to our super producer Christina, our excited
producer Maya, and our controutor Joey.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Steph I never told you of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, you can check out the heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts or where have you listen to
your favorite shows
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm welcome to stuff. I never told you a production
of iHeartRadio. And today we were talking about something that
I am very late to the game too. Given the
job that we do, I'm sometimes embarrassed to admit what
(00:29):
I use to listen to things and what I don't
use to listen to things. But because I had recently
decided I wanted to make a playlist of music for
my very successful friend fiction thank You, I was looking
into Spotify, where a lot of people make these fan
(00:54):
fiction playlists, and I wanted to be able to separate
it out from my personal identity so that people can't
track me. This way, they can be like, oh, this
is this person who wrote this fan fiction. If I
(01:16):
associate this playlist with this fanfiction, and I just went
down this whole rabbit hole of how that's kind of
impossible to do, especially because all of my email addresses
except for one, are pretty clear who I am. I
like it would be pretty easy to find who I
am through that. Also, speaking of fan fiction, there is
(01:39):
a story I read where this is a whole thing
exchanging Spotify playlists and tracking people on Spotify playlists.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Okay, at the beginning, before we started this, you were like,
I think you're going to know more about this. I
have no idea what you're talking about. This is new
to me.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Oh I can't wait. Yeah, you'll have to love because
I feel like you.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Have more in the certain arena of this. So okay,
this is great, Okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
So I also this also kickstarted because I recently went
to the beach with a couple of my friends and
one of them sent a collaborative playlist on Spotify and
basically just add songs to it. And I don't really
use Spotify, and I didn't add any songs, but I
(02:24):
so from that, and then from this fan of fiction experience,
I learned about something called Spotify stalking, which is yes,
I'm really behind on I like I knew it. When
I read about it, I was like, oh, yeah, I
guess I've heard about that, but I didn't know it
was like a whole thing that people do. It's pretty
(02:44):
much what it sounds like. It's it's checking out what
people are listening to their playlist. From what I read,
it seems mostly harmless. People use it both to learn
more about a crush or like post breakup to check
in on what they're maybe doing our feeling. It was
really funny to read some quotes about this where people
will be like, Oh, I can tell he's thinking of
(03:06):
me because this this song and this playlist title.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Wo yes, Yes, the new term delulu seems to fit
into this entire entire Explain to me what that is delusional?
Oh I did not know that. Okay, okay, wow, I'm
(03:30):
learning a lot today. So on Spotify, there's no way
for people to see who has viewed your profile, or
who has listened to your playlist as of yet, or
even who has liked or saved a playlist. You can
you can, and you can really learn a lot about
somebody based on what they're listening to. And we're going
to talk about that more later in how Spotify has
(03:51):
used that and when they're listening to it, especially if
you know them and their taste, there's a lot to
glean there, Like if somebody I used to joke, if
I'm listening to this one song, you know I'm not
in a good place, Like there are things you can
learn from people based on their music taste and when
they're listening to music. I also learned apparently people have
(04:12):
sex playlists, yes that I know.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
I did not know that, and that people have opinions
about what it says about you based on certain songs.
Apparently some people tailor their list to attract people. And
there are cryptic playlist titles, like they try to lure
(04:36):
people in with the titles.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
All this stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I spent way too long on my potential fan fiction
title playlists. And people are way more knowledgeable and invested
in these things than I am. They have like knowledge
about if you're gonna stalk them on LinkedIn, you do this.
Apparently Venmo's talking is a big thing which I want
(05:03):
to come back and talk about.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
You know. That is one thing that I find fascinating
that people actually have people that I'm like, why is
this public for y'all? Why are sharing this? Like do
you not know as public?
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
I feel that way too When I see stuff on Venmo,
I'm like, do you not know or do you not care?
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Like I can stop, I will say. I have figured
out when people have been in relationships with whom A
person a friend of mine I usually told her. I
was like, I'm pretty sure they're dating this person because
of what I found on Ennvinmo and I.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Was correct, Yes, yes, I want to come back to
this one because a lot of people said, yeah, we
can kind of figure out what's going on in their
life based.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
On I'm sad to know that I'm not the smartest
person in the world and figured that on my own.
So there are others who have figured it out too,
But okay.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Yeah, I'm not trying to take anything away from you.
You could be, but yeah, I also learned that apparently
good Reads gets on in on this pinterest.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
As well interest. Yeah, that seems obvious.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
It's fascinating because I was reading about the mindset behind this,
and a lot of a lot of psychologists were like,
it's it's generally harmless, Like generally it makes sense post
break up you're like, what are they doing? As long
as it's not an obsessive thing, if you're just kind
of like, oh.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
He's kind of like going through Instagram and who's this
girl like this?
Speaker 2 (06:36):
And as long as you don't like hate on this
girl or yeah, right kind of yeah, then that makes sense.
Like you're kind of just curious, like, oh, who came
after me? Like before before?
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Makes me said.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Yeah, yeah, but generally.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
It's viewed as kind of a natural thing that happens
in our sort of social media landscape, and it can
be very unhealthy. We're going to talk about that in
just a second. And some have pointed out that this
can be helpful in terms of making sure a person
you're interested in is who they say they are. We've
talked about that too, like before you go on a date,
(07:19):
you might be like, let me look them up. Are
they on social media? Can I find anything out about
them to make sure they're like a real person, and
also that they are hopefully safe to meet. So that's
actually single and is actually signal. Yes, that is a
(07:41):
good point. But as we talk about a lot on
the show, when it comes to these platforms, they can
be used as a tool for abuse harassment in stocking,
especially towards women, and Spotify is not immune from that
because a part of the issue here is that Spotify
(08:01):
is more of a social media platform than many people realize.
It is heavily connected to Facebook, which we know has
a lot of issues around privacy and therefore so to Spotify,
in fact, you can connect and are encouraged to connect
your Spotify to your Facebook and follow friends that way
and see you can see what they're playing, you can
see their activity. It's actually really detailed. There are ways
(08:25):
to do this even if the user didn't connect their
account to Facebook. On top of this, until very recently,
Spotify didn't have an option to block other users. So
in twenty eighteen, BuzzFeed News posted an article chronicling a
woman's hering experience with Spotify stalking. So she had left
(08:45):
her emotionally abusive boyfriend. She did her best to completely
cut him out of her life, but for over a
year he stalked her on social media. He created these
vague profiles, He posted images of locations she just visited,
her asked her friend and her family. She blocked him
on every platform she could, but there was not a
way to block him on Spotify. The woman told BuzzFeed
(09:09):
News that he would quote follow what I was listening
to and send me emails about it, convinced that what
I was listening to was proof I wanted to be
with him again. This was frightening. It revealed the depth
of his desperation to monitor my activity, as well as
his delusions about getting back together. And users had long
(09:31):
been asking for a block feature since at least twenty twelve.
Following what people are listening to is not the only
way to harass or stock them either. On this platform.
Some reported X's making playlist and naming them something threatening
towards them. Another user reported how after getting a restraining
order against an abusive X, He's still harassed her on Spotify,
(09:55):
following artists that they followed and then unfollowing them when
they did. Another said I was the victim of a
violent crime, the perpetrator being someone I knew and whom
I can now not remove from my Spotify. While this
may not be an issue for you, it's a very
big one for me. A change dot org petition gathered
(10:17):
over seven thousand signatures, and it read I was harassed
and stalked online by an acquaintance who was able to
monitor me through my social media profiles. Even if you
cut off contact, the ability for harassmer to continue following
you is a form of intimidation in itself, as if
they are saying you can't stop me from watching you
(10:37):
even here, and many have pointed out the irony that
Spotify took very public stances against artists who had been
found to be sexually violent towards women, but were not
willing to take these steps to protect their users. So
Spotify does have a function called private Session, but it
(11:00):
has to be chosen from the app, and it times
out after a while.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
It does, yeah, so it's like for a short time, yes.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yes, uh, and you have to choose it, so so
you know, you might forget, you might forget that it
times out and you can share a private playlist. But
a lot of people do want to share their music
with friends and followers, just not harassers and amusers. So this,
like with my fan fiction, I was like, I just
want my fan fiction people to listen to it, but
(11:31):
what if I don't want everyone else? There's no option
for that currently, yes, And also it's just not fair
to ask survivors to not use these platforms that are
such a part of all of our lives.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
The reality is that we exist on the internet. It's
a big part of our social interactions, and it's very
blamed the victim to be like, well, too bad, just
go away.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Get off of ignore them.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
We deserve better than that.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
And so in the face of all of this and
twenty twenty one, Spotify does have a block option, but
I think it's important to think about all of the
ways these companies are collecting her data and all the
ways we can be harassed online, because I believe a
lot of people didn't know about this, Like it's not
the first thing you think about when you're thinking about
ways people can harass you online. And I would love
(12:30):
to come back and revisit like good Reads and Venmeo
and LinkedIn, because I believe Goodreads was one that also
came up that was like, you can't block someone from
good It's interesting.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
And you can learn a lot from people based on
the music they listen to. And according to Wired, Spotify
has about three hundred and sixty five million users and
just collects a ton of data. So this is this
is important. So here's a quote from them. Everything you
do and Spotify's web player and desktop and mobile apps
(13:06):
is tracked. Every tap, song, start, playlist, listen, search, shuffle,
and pause is logged. Spotify knows that you started playing
Lizzo's Truth Hurts at twenty three oh three, listen to
it for one minute, then search for Breakup and listen
to the entire four hours and fifty two minutes of
the Angry Breakup playlist without any pauses and then you've
(13:27):
got kind of a read. Don't worry that person is
right now.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
It's gonna be. Okay, it's gonna be.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
But it is true. It's so true. And I just
couldn't figure out.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
I was just going through all these hoops to figure
out what people could see if they come visit my profile,
and like, I don't know ultimately what's on there.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Yeah, it's just sad music. It's okay, But.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Like I just cape up.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Right, but it's still worth knowing, I think. And there
are a lot of tutorials about how to limit what
Spotify tracks, and I suggest that you look them up.
I suggest that you looked that up for all abbs
and services, honestly.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
But the reality is it's too late.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
It's true, but there is some stuff like you can
minimize it at least a little. There's a thing though,
like your TV might be listening to yes, So there's
this whole thing about Roku listening to you. And this
is the problem though, where individual companies no longer have limits.
And a long time ago when policies were presented to
(14:42):
Congress to limit that and to give right to consumers,
and that was literally blocked and or dismissed because they're like, nah,
we love being able to get data and to keep
tapped on people. They're not willing to protect the consumers
that way, but they don't want to restrict what.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
We can and can't see or see or do. So
there's this level of, like when we talked about with Bridget,
how little the government really cares about the individual and
the rights. So when we see bills like the whole
like protect the children stuff from grooming on the interwebs,
we know that's a bunch of lies, and that's just
(15:19):
about having power and the rights to control what we
look at, not protecting us. So this is where I'm like, yeah,
there's things that you can do, and I'm a little
jaded that it's like every single every single app, social
media company that we use, every single thing with TV,
every single thing with like Alexa, with our current laptop,
(15:44):
they've all updated their terms of agreement saying that we
can't sue them for attracting us. Yes, you can opt
out of some of it, but we can turn it
back on whatever we want. Essentially is what every single
thing has updated too. Because Congress has taking out the
limits for these corporations so that's why I'm like, it's
(16:04):
kind of too late. If you've talked on your phone,
you're kind of done. If you have a smart TV,
it's over. Sorry.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Yeah, yeah, but you can still turn some stuff.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
You can turn stuff off for sure, at the very least,
at least like stop doing some things to get harassed
by individuals, not necessarily from the companies though. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Well, and that's the thing like this article, as we've
talked about several times, like Spotify is not selling you music,
They're selling companies your data.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Like that's their business model. That's what most of them
are doing.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Is something about Instacart. They're not actually making money off
of doing the services. Is actually being able to make
money from the data. That's why they're able to give
you as many deals as they.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Get, right exactly your the product.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
And that's the Black Mirror episode.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
It's true.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Here, I am just trying to be a nerd and
have a fan fiction playlist that can't be traced back.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
To me, like af from this.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
I just looked at my Spotify list. I was like,
I have followers, yes, why And then I realized a
couple of those because we made spenty playlists. So those followers.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
We love you, Yes, we do. And that's the thing
I want to I hate that.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
I want to share it like it's not I don't
like this whole idea, like you can either. So on
Spotify it's pretty much no one can see it or
everyone can see it. And I wish there was a
middle ground of that, but currently, as far as I know,
there is not. But let me know if I'm wrong,
(17:53):
if you have a workaround.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Maybe there are some savvy people out there.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
There are, but some of those savvy people freaked me
out because they were like, here's how you find somebody
on Spotify, even if they're private, and it was code
and I was like, oh no, a kid, there's nothing
on my Spotify.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
But I just don't like the idea of it. Okay,
don't look at it. Yeah, don't look at it unless
I want you to, and then you can maybe.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Well I'm sure we'll be back because I have a
lot more questions after doing this research so many things.
But in the meantime, if you have any thoughts about
this listeners, you can contact us. You can email us
a step media mom stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You
can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or
on Instagram and TikTok at.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Stephane never told you. We have a tea.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Public store and we have a book that you can
get right now. That's stuff you should read books dot com.
Thanks as always to our super producer Christina, our excited
producer Maya, and our controutor Joey.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Steph I never told you of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, you can check out the heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts or where have you listen to
your favorite shows
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
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