New York
Spotify has removed tens of thousands of phony podcasts selling unlawful on-line pharmacies, a brand new investigation has discovered, after experiences from NCS and different information retailers uncovered the difficulty final yr.
Last May, Spotify stated it had removed dozens of podcasts identified by NCS that blatantly promoted on-line pharmacies purportedly promoting medicine akin to Adderall and Oxycontin, in some instances with out a prescription. Days later, Senator Maggie Hassan launched an investigation into the pretend podcasts, which violated Spotify’s guidelines and threatened to direct customers to spammy and doubtlessly unlawful websites.
The investigation’s findings, printed Thursday, increase questions on Spotify’s means to proactively detect and take away doubtlessly dangerous content material. Hassan stated the corporate ought to have acted sooner and alerted legislation enforcement to the content material.
“As criminals use AI to perpetuate scams and other dangerous actions faster and in larger quantities, all online platforms need to step up, protect their users, and enforce comprehensive strategies to remove illegal content,” Hassan, a New Hampshire Democrat and the rating member of the Joint Economic Committee, stated in a press release NCS forward of the report’s launch.
Parents, consultants and lawmakers have urged tech giants to do extra to forestall the sale of counterfeit or illicit medicine to younger individuals via their platforms after a number of teens have died of overdoses from pills bought online.
Spotify advised NCS the phony podcasts have been a “spam attack” designed to spice up the purported on-line pharmacies’ visibility in search engines like google and advised investigators they weren’t focused at promoting medicine to Spotify customers.
“Bad actors attempting to abuse our platform will always try to circumvent or evade our detection,” Spotify spokesperson Laura Batey advised NCS. “When we are made aware of such attempts, we act quickly to remove the content and update our detection systems accordingly.”
Spotify provides free instruments that enable anybody to create, distribute and doubtlessly monetize podcasts. But its rules prohibit “content that illicitly promotes the sale of regulated or illegal goods,” together with unlawful medicine. It makes use of each automated expertise and human reviewers to implement its guidelines, the corporate says.
Spotify advised investigators that none of the drug sales podcasts have been monetized on its platform, reiterating an earlier assertion to NCS that it had earned no income from the content material.
Spotify had already removed some such content material previous to the investigation. It then removed 3,500 podcast accounts and 57,000 particular person episodes between May — when the difficulty grew to become public — and November of final yr, in comparison with fewer than 100 accounts removed the yr prior, in keeping with the report. Spotify stated that it had “’less complete data for previous years, ‘as we did not track removals in this way,’” the report states. Batey advised NCS that the corporate’s “reporting structure has improved year over year.”
Spotify advised investigators that 94% of the phony podcasts had by no means been streamed and 99% had fewer than 10 streams, which the platform defines as listening periods longer than 30 seconds. But a handful had been listened to extra broadly, together with two totaling virtually 13,000 streams that directed customers to purchase the prescription stimulant modafinil on-line, together with with bitcoin.
It’s not clear what number of Spotify customers might have clicked via to the web sites purporting to promote medicine as a result of the corporate advised investigators it “does not track interaction with hyperlinks embedded in podcast content,” the report states.
Spotify says it has a course of to refer content material to legislation enforcement however didn’t achieve this for any of the drug-related podcasts it removed final yr, in keeping with the report. The firm has beforehand stated that the phony podcasts have been largely spam or rip-off makes an attempt. But one podcast recognized by the investigators in July 2025 linked to “opioidstores.com,” which the Drug Enforcement Administration and different federal businesses later seized, the findings state.
Spotify reiterated that it believes the podcast linking to “opioidstores.com” was spam. “Spotify has a long history of working with law enforcement when content violates the law,” the corporate advised NCS.
Investigators stated they discovered a “public playlist” on the platform promoting “oxycodone online” in December 2025, months after the corporate had begun participating with them.
Hassan’s report suggests it’s not only a Spotify downside: Investigators discovered a small quantity of comparable phony podcasts on different streaming platforms. That contains an episode promoting “Xanax Pills Online” on iHeart and a sequence selling different medicine on Amazon Music and Podchaser.
“The challenges that Spotify has faced in its efforts to remove content related to potential scams and illegal drugs should raise alarm bells about the volume of harmful content that exists across all types of online platforms,” Hassan advised NCS.
Amazon Music, iHeart and Podchaser didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.