- Spotify is now asking UK users to prove their age to access mature content
- The age verification checks have been introduced as part of the UK’s Online Safety Act
- Spotify says it will present age checks if it suspects you’re under 13, but many users have encountered checks despite being over 18
Spotify has become the latest app to introduce measures designed to comply with the UK’s Online Safety Act, by asking users to undergo age verification checks if they want to view or listen to age-restricted content – and many users aren’t happy.
The age verification requirements of the Online Safety Act came into effect from July 25, and requires all platforms that display adult content to verify that users are over 18 using age verification checks.
So far, we’ve seen the likes of Xbox, Discord and Reddit introduce age verification, and now Spotify has done the same.
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Like Reddit and X, Spotify has partnered with digital identification firm Yoti, a service that conducts age checks via facial scanning. For Spotify users, Yoti will use different means of age verification, from facial scanning to requesting a scan of your ID if it suspects you’re under 13 (Spotify’s minimum age requirement).
It will also use algorithmic methods to estimate a user’s age. But Spotify is taking it a step further, stating in its official outline that “your account will be deactivated and eventually deleted” if you fail to complete the age verification process.
While Yoti claims that your data will be kept safe, and eventually deleted, the new requirement has caused uproar among some Spotify users.
Some have take to forums such as Reddit to point that young people are clever enough to find ways around the checks, for example using a VPN to change their location to somewhere other than the UK – and a minority have even threatened to revert to piracy (see below). What is ‘mature content’ in Spotify?
A phone on a green background showing a Peaches album on Spotify (Image credit: Spotify)
This is the burning question among Spotify fans, considering the music streaming app doesn’t host X-rated content on the same scale as Reddit or X. However, the platform does have certain features that are aimed at mature users.
In Spotify’s case, you may be asked to verify your age if you try to “access some Spotify content and features, like Music videos that are labeled as 18+ by rightsholders”. This could also apply to podcasts that discuss mature content and songs with explicit lyrics.
Fortunately, there is a way back if your account becomes deactivated due to an inaccurate age estimation. According to Spotify, you’ll get an email that “allows you to reactivate your account within 90 days of deactivation”, after which you’ll need to go through age verification checks again.
So far, I haven’t been asked to verify my age in the Spotify app when trying to access mature podcasts and music videos, but a handful of users on forums like Reddit who are well over the age of 18 have have already encountered the checks. Why have VPNs become so popular?
Spotify has explained in various community posts that it isn’t designed to work with VPNs, and you naturally shouldn’t use one to circumvent any age verification checks.
However, this hasn’t stopped free VPNs from dominating Apple’s UK App Store, as internet users look to find ways of protecting their data from future breaches, or perhaps even bypass those checks completely.
VPNs work by encrypting your internet traffic, but they’re not all equal – so it’s important to choose the right one for your needs. Free VPNs can log an excessive amount of data, which could ultimately put your privacy at risk, and sometimes lack important security features.
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I never stopped downloading my favorite stuff. I pay for streaming, but I’m not trusting them to give me access forever.
People only threaten to leave but never actually do it because “muh recommendation algorithm”
Whats a good alternative? I tried last.fm for a while but didn’t like the suggestions.
Do it, why don’t they do it??? Because they are cowards!
Same goes for Nintendo fans and Nintendo 2, and many other who finally caved.
I’m sick of all these people saying but do nothingThey live from us, not the opposite. We have the power.
I want to support independent artists, not that Spotify gives them a fair share. My plan is to support artists where possible via Bandcamp or merch, but otherwise find a way to acquire music
wait to buy shit at shows instead of online. Bands make more directly from live March sales vs online.
Unfortunately, many of the artists I listen to don’t play near me often.
What? Interacting with people in live environments? In this economy?
Wow look at you affording to go to concerts.
I want to remind people something: you are using this decentralized and open source platform for free.
Spotify is shit but artists releasing their music there is not helping. There are plenty of musicians struggling to live off their career but these in top charts most people listen to are not poor, their are on spotify because it’s lucrative.
No no no, just start torrenting. Streaming services shouldn’t exist. They rob you & then geo-block you & then censor you
OK. Enlighten me. What’s a solid route to find underground bands from around the world that that isnt a streamer or bandcamp? Youre not gonna find underground shit with just torrents and torrenting only makes sure that bands dont ever make the money they need to continue. “They rob you…” Yeah and your robbing underground bands of funds they need to continue putting out mudic Its shitty but bandcamp has historically been good to underground bands in ways that no other site has considered. So please. Point me somewhere that i can find underground bands AND that pays on par with bandcamp.
You can just send them the money directly you know ?
Rip it from youtube. Yt-dlp works fine. You likely will have to compromise something but its possible.
I swear if they continue with this kinda shit, I’m gonna go from ‘fan’ to ‘disappointed paying customer’
paying
It’s called ‘Premium.’ Costs am oh any why
I see shit going everywhere. Why didn’t that disappoint you with youself first?
Disappoint me with myself? What have I done?
Respected a corporation.
Respect = bad ???
$hut the fcuk 🆙, yer fcoking moron (am I doing this right?)
I wonder how “bad” it really is for a kid to be exposed to nudity (and “worse”!), if actually at all or even the reverse.
Then Bam 18 years old, let’s look at beheading videos and 2 girls 1 cup no problemo?
If buying isn’t owning piracy isn’t stealing.
Since when have there been age restrictions on music? Freedom of the arts, anyone?
Yeah, except Spotify isn’t just a music company. They’ve been trying for years to get you to use their App for other stuff that’s costs them less royalties.
So now Spotify includes all manners of audiobooks and shitty podcasts.
And while we all agree that age verification is bad… If anything ever deserves age verification, it may be Joe Rogan.
Tried Spotify years ago and found the sound quality abyssmal, the catalogue disappointing and the ads unbearable. Still can’t understand why people are wasting their time with that crap. OTOH people are using their smartphones and BT headphones as their primary source for music, so it doesn’t really matter what kind of noise they’re enjoying. Protip: Put your heads in the blender. Acoustuically equivalent, much cheaper and doesn’t make you half as stupid. Plus: wearing a blemder on your head might become the next big thing on TikTok.
“PARENTAL ADVISORY”, once a coveted badge even 😄
Music was age restricted in the us forever. I got denied buying doggie style when I was younger
“Forever” can’t be. I got through all sorts of trouble buying beer in the US when I only had a European drivers’ license with me but not the slightest bit buying CDs in the 1990s. OTOH, that might depend on state or even be “self regulation” at work.
Honestly, I was probably too young for that album when it first came out. Listening to that album as a 40s year old man made me think why there was a age restriction.
If you’re in the US then it’s since Tipper Gore, wife of Al Gore, got a bug up her ass. You can find video of Dee Snyder, lead vocalists of the 80’s hair metal band Twisted Sister giving testimony before congress.
It was hilarious when Dee implied that maybe Tipper (Al Gores wife) was into BDSM because she was so up in arms about some lyrics. Al Gore looked like his head was gonna explode.
https://www.ranker.com/list/dee-snyder-speech-parents-music-resource-center/melissa-sartore
Bug up her ass? Is that a metaphor 😐?
It’s more of an idiom but yeah it’s not literal. It’s similar to “bee in one’s bonnet” but more crass/modern.
Dee Snyder gave an eloquent defense of free speech in that testimony.
2Live Crew provided a significantly less eloquent and significantly more awesome performance on Phil Donahue.
You have (perhaps unintentionally) self marked your account as a bot account. Because some people enable the filter to not see these comments you may want to undo that.
Interesting. I didn’t know that was possible.
I thought that setting allowed me to see bot accounts. Thanks for the tip.Under settings there should be one box for “show bot accounts” which sounds like what you wanted on and another called “bot account” which lets people self identify an account as a bot.
I remember. Bur AFAIK that didn’t have much effect except some funny stickers on US imports. I’d have noticed if anything like age verification for music had been in place in Europe (incl. UK) because I used to go to record stores and buy actual records. I still was a minor during the better part of the 1980s and very much into metal so I’d certainly know.
You wouldn’t censor art, right?! Right?!
Those who knows, knows …
wtf is up with this coordinated push to tie your internet accounts to your government ID.
what garbage international NGO is behind it this time?
international NGO
Bitch, it’s the same dudes as usual. Nothing “non-government” about this.
They always wanted to do it and they are finally pushing it. Governments spend billions in planning their authoritarian shit, perhaps until now it wasn’t convenient for them because not enough people used the internet or they had enough control over it already.
Billionaires. Want to increase control.
And ‘adult’ content is code for queer. Anything else is collateral damage.
I don’t think it’s just queer content they’re targeting, though that is a big part of it. These people are also just puritanical fucks that think nobody should get to watch porn. Same people that support anti-sex worker laws, abstinence education, anti-abortion laws. It’s about control and stopping anybody from having any goddamn fun.
True. And we need to show them there are consequences.
They’re afraid we’re’attacking the family’? Okay, lets go. That shit’s evil anyway-children are not property of their parents, especially if those parents are 'stains, lets make this happen.
‘Christians are persecuted’? Well, let’s figure out what we can do to make that happen, what we can take from them, what we can exclude them from. Bet there are a lot fewer ‘chrietians’ on college campuses when it gets you blacklisted from any party worth a damn. Fewer christians in slums when the liqour store won’t sell to them fewer chriwtians in suburbs when it gets their houses vandalized.
This isn’t an NGO, it’s multiple western governments. They want more control and the companies involved want more data.
The end of the anonymous internet was being predicted as the Corporate Web started taking off in the mid-00s. Rumors were swirling about companies like Meta requiring government I.D. at least five years ago.
This ID stuff is almost certainly going to happen this time.
In the words of my forefathers, “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me.” 🖕
EDIT: MUTHAAAAFUCKAAAARRRRR!!
My favorite quote. Saving this.
Big tech is always bad.
In this case it’s government mandated.
It was lobbied for by the likes of google, meta etc as having verified users increases their advertising value - the same way a farmer would provide documents when selling their cattle to increase the value.
It’s not about the advertisers. There are bigger prizes here.
Doesn’t matter.
Actually, if something is the easiest option, it’s ALWAYS the worst. Better options are ALWAYS harder.
Example:
Gmail: Easy to use but google tracks you and uses it for ai.
Tuta Mail: Medium diffuculty, because everything is not integrated and it’s not the default.
Self-hosted: Hard, but you can do whatever the hell you want.
Is that why engineers over engineer everything?
“Wait, this is too easy… I must be doing something wrong here!”
/s
Perchance /s
The best option isnt always the hardest, but it’s never the easiest.
Ios will sell your soul, it’s in the TOS. Android too.
But arch is harder than qubes, and qubes is more secure even if you configure arch well.
Sure, but unrelated to the article
I know there has to be a logical reason for this but I’m very uneducated in this so I’ll ask. How can a government in one county impact the running of a business in another?
If I have a website in Canada that charges for classes in knitting and Brazil detemines they don’t want people under 18 learning how to knit, can they force me to make changes? Why can’t I just ignore them? If Brazil then blocks my domain, I can just give VPN instructions.
Through the legal system.
You’re right in that, if the website operator is in a country with no diplomatic ties to the UK, then they’re out of reach.
Which is why banning tools such as VPNs will naturally flow from this, too. The creation of the great firewall UK/EU.
Which is why banning tools such as VPNs will naturally flow from this, too.
You can’t ban VPNs, they’re too heavily used by businesses. They COULD regulate this current “VPN as a Service” thing with providers like PIA, Proton, and Mullvad but a general / blanket ban on the technology itself is wildly improbable.
Do you have a VPN license, mate?
Simple: if you’re small enough, Brazil won’t care. Supposed Brazilians are getting nuts about your unexpectedly viral knitting site, they might decide to block you. Now you have the option to live with it or to decide that the Brazilian market is too important for you to lose and comply with Brazilian regulations.
If you need to do business with the country of the mandating government, your choices are comply or don’t do business with that country. Since you don’t want to lose that market, you are going to comply.
You could, of course, give vpn instructions, but because your business model is shitty and many things are geolocked, you don’t want people using a vpn to bypass the age verification and also the geolocking.
Imagine being told that you have to submit your facial scan to an unknown third party to prove that you’re old enough to pay to listen to something that’s being broadcast over the air for free.
I don’t want to side with Spotify but if it helps I’m pretty sure this would only happen for people on the free tier. Card payments can be used to verify age.
I think that’s an assumption that’s not based off evidence though. Besides, family accounts exist. And we all know these laws suppose that parents don’t know how to parent anymore.
My jellyfin server doesn’t ask for age verification, has no monthly fee, has unlimited skips, can work while offline and allows to download the media. It also can be used in several devices at the same time and has not just music but pretty much any kind of media.
Fuck you, spotify. If people go back to piracy, it’s on you.
Moving is always a hassle (like windows=>Linux) but can be so beneficial, I’m on the road to musical independence and jellyfin seems to be the beast. Is there some android “app” for it so that you can download music and listen when you’re offline?
The jellyfin clients allow to download media from your server (if your user has permission to do so, but if you are your own admin, you decide your own permissions, so…).
To download music for the server I use soulseek. It’s pretty much like the old napster and has also an android client.
BTW are there an open jellyfin test server somewhere? I’m checking out the android app on holidays (so can’t set up my own server just yet).
Not that I know of, sorry. However, the setup is so easy that I think you’d lose more time looking for a test server than actually setting up yours with a few songs to test.
Ooh excellent!
And yeah soulseek is quite good, especially for old music or so I feel.
Same but I use navidrome for music (Jellyfin is create for my tv/movie collection)
I’m also working on a new open source server and front end for a personal pandora like service, that uses machine learning (not popularity from last.fm) to find songs that are statistically similar across 150 dimensions.
Let me add myself to the chorus of “Fuck yes please”.
Any chance that this could be used in combination with existing streaming servers like Jellyfin or Navidrome? It would be most convenient to have generated playlists that I can download before leaving home.
Also, I have all my music already tagged with acousticbrainz metadata. Are those good for anything?
Oh fuck yes! Message me when you’ve got it?
I submit my listens to listenbrainz and let it give me a weekly list of new songs to try.
Jellyfin works for me because I also use it to watch concerts and other content, so having everything in the same app is convenient.
Our of interest, where are you running Jellyfin and have you opened it so you can access it from outside your WiFi?
I have a zimablade home server.
To access my server from outside my wifi I use Tailscale on my phone and other devices. I have created a rule for certain tags so I can create keys that when assigned to those tags, have access only to the port of my jellyfin server and not the rest of the services running on it. That way I can share it with friends.
Since android only allows a single vpn at a time and I browse internet with a vpn, I installed shelter on my phone to create a “work” profile where I installed the tailscale vpn and jellyfin so through the work profile I am connected to the vpn of my home server while I retain my normal vpn for the rest.
Yo, thanks for showing me zimablade, that looks sick.
If you are running your jellyfin at home, there’s a lot of companies and systems and setups out there that will allow you to VPN into your home network and access the services that you are running there.
Age check for music. The authoritarians have won.
No. They can’t win.
Thats the thing. Evil is evil because it doesn’t fucking work.
They can only make us lose. That’s not them winning.
