Spotify Allowing Political Ads on Their Platform After Pausing Them In 2020

Spotify is quietly relaunching political ads on its platform, two years after ditching the revenue source.

The company originally put a pause on political ads in 2020 and the decision only affected the United States which was the only country Spotify sold the ads in.

At the time, Spotify cited a lack of resources need to verify and review the ads as the reason why the company would cease advertising.

Now, two years later, as the midterm elections begin to ramp up, the company has done a 180.

A spokesperson for Spotify, Erin Styles said in a statement to Protocol, “Following our pause of political ads in early 2020, we have spent the past two years strengthening and enhancing our processes, systems, and tools to responsibly validate and review this content.”

According to Protocol, the political ads will only be featured in the realm of podcasts and won’t yet be added to the ad-streaming music feature.

This shift in strategy comes after Spotify’s top dog, Joe Rogan has received backlash for sharing his own political and cultural views on his podcast, that’s exclusive to the platform.

It’s unclear how users and hosts will feel, about having political ads, not affiliated with their show, play at random.