1y ago

Spotify Removes Offensive Imagery But Keeps Transphobic Song Despite Outcry

www.advocate.com Spotify Removes Offensive Imagery But Keeps Transphobic Song Despite Outcry

GLAAD raised the alarm while Apple Music remains unchanged amid this hate speech controversy.

Spotify has removed offensive imagery associated with a controversial song by Christian rapper Tyson James and his 11-year-old son Toby James, following a complaint by GLAAD.
However, the song “Still 2 Genders,” criticized for its transphobic lyrics, continues to be available on the platform. Meanwhile, no changes have been made to Apple Music’s platform.
Earlier this month, The Advocatereported that the song was accessible on major music streaming platforms, including Spotify and Apple Music, despite its derogatory lyrics towards transgender individuals, including a slur to describe them. The situation caught the attention of GLAAD, which then took up the issue with Spotify’s trust and safety team.
In an updated statement provided to The Advocate, a spokesperson from GLAAD emphasized the importance of enforcing hate speech policies by companies.
“Companies have hate speech policies to protect all users from toxic content and especially from content that incites violence against marginalized people. When these policies are violated, it is important to see companies enforce them,” the statement read.
GLAAD’s statement highlighted the grave real-world implications of hateful rhetoric and imagery connecting it to a tragic incident.
“The terrible murder of Lauri Carlton, an ally who had hung a Pride flag outside her store, is connected to a suspect who had an image of a burning Pride flag pinned to his Twitter profile,” the statement added.
The spokesperson further noted, “Rhetoric, images, and targeting of LGBTQ people encourages real-world harms. Companies and brands must continue to recognize their responsibility to people’s safety and public safety and immediately act to avoid facilitating anti-LGBTQ hate and violence.”
Spotify responded by removing the album cover and video imagery that included a burning Progress Pride flag GLAAD noted to The Advocate. Despite these steps, the song itself, carrying an anti-trans slur and dehumanizing transgender people as “demons,” remains live on Spotify’s platform.
Both Spotify and Apple Music have policies in place to moderate content on their platforms. Apple Music for Artists’ terms of service stipulates that all lyrics provided to the platform must be “correct, accurate, and do not contain hate speech.” On the other hand, Spotify’s Dangerous Content policy bars “content that incites violence or hatred towards a person or group of people based on race, religion, gender identity or expression.”
Despite these policies, Apple Music has yet to make any changes or respond to inquiries regarding the song’s availability on its platform.
In a prior response, GLAAD had stressed the digital sphere’s struggle with hate speech moderation, especially concerning anti-LGBTQ+ content, which extends beyond the realm of music streaming platforms. Their concern was not only about the derogatory lyrics but also the inconsistency in enforcing content policies by these platforms, which undermines the safety and inclusivity of all users.
As the scrutiny continues, both Spotify and Apple Music remain unresponsive to multiple inquiries from The Advocate regarding this issue. This scenario underscores a broader discussion concerning digital content moderation on streaming platforms, especially around anti-LGBTQ+ content.

link: https://www.advocate.com/news/spotify-transphobic-song-glaad

archive link: https://archive.ph/tz9FX

145 comments

I don't know this song. I won't listen to this song. I don't care about it.
But it becomes a slippery slope when censorship gets blown up like this. I'd rather it all be on there and I can choose to not listen to it than for them to tell me what I'm allowed to listen to on their platform. Are they going to start banning Bloodhound gang or Eminem for homophobia and violence? What about Rotting Christ for anti religion? Dying Fetus?
It should stay on the platforms and collect dust instead of being shared by articles. I probably would have never even heard of this, but now I'm worried that some of the music I listen to will be collateral.
- I mean, I agree with your sentiment, but I do feel as if we’re walking into a trap here.
  Whenever there’s a push to remove bigoted or otherwise harmful content it’s always “censorship”.
  When conservatives want to remove content they find objectionable they are “exercising their free speech” in calling for the removal.
  So, no, I’m not going to pretend I’m some freeze peach champion when that rhetoric is exclusively used to harm me and the people I care about.
  
  On the flip side, I don't see how I can protest book banning and simultaneously call for song banning.
  Yes, conservatives are hypocritical and morally bankrupt. That doesn't mean I should be, too.
- Dance with the Devil by Immortal Technique
- No it doesn't. Last I heard Spotify isn't a branch of government. Until such time as we nationalize them. They're free to deplatform anyone and everyone they want within reason.
  The problem is, they're only out for money and have no moral compass. Combine that with the burgeoning fascism problem we have in the US for instance. You get this. There's money to be made marketing and appealing to bigots and their ilk. And they're gonna keep doing it till it costs them. Expect no meaningful action.
- Feel how you want, but Spotify has a very clear policy on hateful content. And sure, maybe you won't listen to it, but do you know who will? Bigoted psychos that will go out and commit a hate crime. Allowing content like this on a popular platform will lead to hate crimes. There is nothing wrong with private platforms choosing to not platform certain kinds of content and it is entirely within their right.
  Spotify has the right to deplatfom hateful content and doing so is the ethical thing to do.
- There's plenty of really offensive music out there, and you can't put one group on a pedestal and say 'but these guys you can't ridicule.' .. Except..
  Thinking about it, the offensive music is towards people with bat-shit crazy belief systems etc, rather than criticising people for what they are. I don't think I would be ok with racist music for example, or music that targets.. idk, bald people, because it's something they can't change.
  So actually, I agree, ban the song. Let's go back to ridiculing Christians, Scientologists, Muslims, Hindus, communists, etc because those are all belief systems that people can change.
  
  Simple, all it takes is to take the Book of Wrong Ideas, which is notoriously objective and shared across the world.
- Smash the fash
  I literally don't care if songs or artists perpetuating bigotry get "censored", the world is better without them.
  Just listen to something else and quit whining.
  
  Just listen to something else and quit whining.
  This is actually step one, and the only step.
  
  That is quite literally what he's doing, he's listening to something else.
  
  You don't care until "bigotry" means what you think it means and not what someone else thinks, or until the same principle is pushed by other groups who happen to not care if "songs or artists perpetuating ____ get censored".
  There is already a problem with monopoly in terms of which music is available, I can't wait to have those companies decide even more which songs can be published based on totally arbitrary principles and without any accountability. I am pretty sure that articles about this trash song will have the consequences of generaring more listens than if this was just ignored. I, for once, would have never known this song existed without this article, and now I am fairly curious to go check the lyrics to make a better idea about the article itself. Straisand effect and all...
  
  100%. These people cannot return to being "acceptable" to exist. Purge them from society and force them to retreat to the dark corners from which they've been hiding since the end of WWII.

Yes, censor all the things. It'll certainly never be used against you.
- I met someone who had such a thought about hatespeech and how you should be fined until I pointed out he and his friends call eachother removed removeds on discord all the time and asked how much he should have to pay in fines. He stopped supporting the idea of fines
  
  Did you just censor yourself or am I about to change instances?
- Unfettered hate speech leads to hate crimes.
  
  Prohibition doesn't make things go away. It only makes them more sneaky.
  
  I don't disagree necessarily, but people can be intolerant of hate speech without the force of government.
- Allowing fascism to spread is allowing censorship. Choosing not to censor fascism is choosing to allow intolerance to become mainstream.
  You call for a utopia of free speech where even Nazis can live happily alongside the minorities whose deaths they call for. Such a utopia does not exist. It's impossible. The fascists will go around to all other members of this "utopia" and by force coercion and indoctrination convince them to come together to murder the minorities. Then having done so they will censor all thought that does not align with their hatred and their conspiracies.
  Tolerating fascism is the same thing as propagating it.
  
  Holy cow man, chill, this discussion is about censoring a song about 2 genders, not a fascist manifesto.
  
  Tolerating fascism is the same thing as propagating it.
  This is literally and factually false.
  As bad as propagating it? Go for it. But you should be aware that making statements like you did makes it really easy for people to dismiss you offhand.
- Some things should be censored, and I don't think that's too hot of a take, either. Any material that encourages intolerance of others should not be accepted in any civil culture.

If we want to outlaw tasteless and offensive music, we'll be here all day.

For an 11 year old to be so full of hate someone must be pushing an agenda on them pretty hard and in this case at the very least it ain’t the drag queens.
- I believe that if you grow up only around people who believe something you’ll believe that too before you hit puberty
- I bet you $5 Daddy touches his b-hole

Guys, I hate it too. But we can't just remove every single piece of art we find objectionable. Yes, I am using the word Art liberally. Do you really want to live in that world?
- We can remove hate speech though, and conflating hate speech with "every single piece of art we find objectionable" is dodgy af.
  
  Eminem has a lot of homophobic lyrics. Think you're going to get him removed? Music has always pushed the boundaries of what's acceptable. Sometimes that's a good thing, other times it's not. But I think an artists freedom of expression overrides your feelings.
  
  Having an opinion (even a controversial one) isn't hate speech. Does the song actually call for anything hateful?
  
  I hear China is lovely this time of year
  
  Man, I can say "The sky is blue" and someone will say it's hate speech.
  
  saying "there are two genders" is not hate speech. You are allowed to make fun of people in a song, that doesn't make it hate speech.
- this is just a slightly repackaged version of the typical "If I cant say the N word then its a slippery slope and before you know it its 1984" argument freeze peach absolutists use.
  
  China's first speech law was about racism, y'all want to kill free speech, it just Boggles the mind. it never stops with "Hate speech"
  "hate speech" is just a Trojan horse
- Sucks to suck. Imagine not getting into art school

Just checked. Seems like Where The Hood At by DMX is still there. Is this really any worse?
- Honestly that song is absolutely wild and more wild that it’s just totally accepted as ok. Like it’s the homophobic anthem ffs.
  
  It really is. The beat, the hook.. All great. It's a legit fantastic song if it wasn't for the absolute dog shit content of the lyrics.
  
  No different than 95% of all hip hop made in the 90s.
- True. This song is current and plays very outspoken into a hate narrative that is tolerated by mainstream culture and is having real impacts on people today. Not that homophobia isn't also a part of this same thing but. This song was written with only the purpose of promoting this specific fascist hate movement. Fascist media shouldn't be tolerated anywhere by anyone. Tolerating them is the first step towards legitimizing them. A tolerant society must excise fascism from its roots wherever it should grow. We have already failed in this, but the least we can do is condemn fascists and the organizations that harbor their content.
  
  Legitimately curious, what makes this hate media fascist?
  EDIT: From your other comments it appears that this is fascist because being against LGBT rights is a common aspect of the modern neofascist movement.

I’m old enough to remember when it was the Christians getting music they thought was offensive pulled from the public eye, not the other way around.
- They still do. Also, get actual books banned from public libraries.
  Don’t let them distract you into taking your eyes off the ball with fake “BUT THE INTOLERANT LEFT” concern trolling.
- I still remember them spouting about the "gay agenda" and nobody I asked knew what exactly this "gay agenda" was.

They should thank you all for the free advertisement. I had no idea this was a thing until this thread.
- Bullshit. You've heard of Spotify.
  
  OK, and? That music just isn't on my radar, therefore the algorithm never suggests it to me. What's your point?
- Are you saying this post prompted you to listen to the song?
  
  Eh, just curious to see what the fuss was all about. Forgive me, I think I made the artist $.00000005

If there is an argument to be made here, it’s whether or not the song calls for intolerance à la the paradox of tolerance. There’s plenty of pornogrind, slam, and other brutal death metal on Spotify that’s thematically horrific. While the subject is definitely about really sadistic shit, there’s no overt message to go out and do that or that there are classes of people that deserve that. If this is just bullshit biblical propaganda, whatever, slam is gnarlier than Lot’s daughters. If this is advocating for the removal of a class of people, it might be warranted.
I didn’t read or search for the lyrics because fuck driving traffic to this garbage.
- I mean, there’s plenty of songs about murder/gang shit that is serious and encouraging it
  
  Hmm... You know, every argument I can come up with about why that might be okay could be just as easily applied by the trans-phobes.
  "Well maybe we need to consider whether people might actually act on it". In the case of gangs, they definitely do. Gang violence is as bad as ever. Meanwhile, I suspect this antitrans song will provoke far less action than some diss tracks.
  "Yeah but it's somewhat of a cultural thing, if we take it away from them it's going to start a whole big thing"... Black inner city culture / white country boy culture... They'll both react the same way.
  Is it just the quantity of it? There's more gang rap so it's become normalized? That doesn't bode well for what we can expect from these country folk.
  Seriously, I can't think of a good reason why gang rap that encourages violence should be allowed while this isn't.

I listen to a lot of death metal including brutal death metal that has lyrics that many would find objectionable. I guess the key difference is that death metal is not expressing the views of the artist. Still, there are plenty of artists with objectionable views whose songs are not deplatformed.
- Could be that it's just general death and mayhem in your lyrics vs targeted, destructive lyrics about how a certain particular outgroup is "demonic".
  
  It's a tough distinction to make though. I would say let's label it as objectionable content, maybe even ban it from being "promoted" (which honestly I hate that bands can pay to be forced on my home screen anyway) and call it a day.

I was trying to find the lyrics to the song and came across another one of his song's lyrics that is arguably worse
https://genius.com/Tyson-james-pedofiles-lyrics
I mean, holy shit "L-G-B-T-Q, Let God Burn Them Quickly" is one of the lines.
This guy's music should not be played anywhere.
- Oh but didn't you know that's just a slippery slope argument and he's really just a cool dude and who doesn't encourage hate or violence? /s
  A whole lotta people in this thread who don't want to acknowledge that this dude is trash, no matter how good or bad their music is.
  
  I find it amazing how just generalized human thought is, that just because one false slippery slope has been identified as fallacious, that any argument about a slippery slope is therefore a fallacy and less valid. I do not think Humanity will be saved by the existence of any philosophy or movement, because we will always find some way to pervert the movement or apply the teachings in terrible ways.

The only people who might like songs like this are people who hate the targets of the lyrics already. Therefore I don't think cancelling them makes any sense. It just feeds into their "they're cancelling us!" echo chamber.
And consider the negative effects: Now way more people know this dumbass exists. Like myself. Even though I don't think he'll be getting new converts, he will most probably get more listeners (=money) due to people clutching their pearls like this.
- "We can have a little bigotry, for a treat"

Spotify plays a fun game. They kept GG Allin's less racist songs, got rid of Skrewdriver. To be a fly on the wall in those corpo meetings.

I believe that restrictions on creative freedom are morally wrong, even if the intent is to prevent hurtful or offensive content. Art is meant to be provocative and make a statement after all.
That said after reading some of the lyrics, it is clear that this song is actually advocating murder via burning of queer individuals, which is both wrong morally and not protected speech under us law.

I dislike journalism that gives you their conclusions, but not the evidence by which they drew the conclusions. Quoting a single word is not the same as quoting the lyrics and the context around them so that we could either agree with the conclusion or not.
Let people be damned by their own actions and their own words, no need to editorialize evidence.
Here are the actual lyrics https://genius.com/Tyson-james-2-genders-lyrics
Not a great take, not a great song, but where was the slur?
Also no reference to "demons" in these lyrics. Maybe I have the wrong lyrics?
- Ah I see where you went wrong. That’s the hit song 2 Genders by Tyson James. What this article is about is the hit song Still 2 Genders by Tyson James.
  
  Thanks for pointing that out! The original article had linked to the lyrics it would have reduced the confusion..
  I couldn't find the lyrics for " still two genders ", but I found the music video on YouTube.
  Here's the video ID, you can put that in the YouTube manually, but I'm not going to link it directly for obvious reasons. Twhftjwdi-k
  They did say demons, " all these demons are going to burn for it"
  And they did call the president a Pedo.
  I didn't catch everything they said, some of it was a little mumbled, I didn't catch any other slurs.
  It's not great, these are not good people. It's like 4chan made a music video. With the same production values. Even talking about them is winning. Any media attention they get is good for them, they're so tiny.
- Thank you for posting the actual lyrics. I agree with you, the song is cringe AF, but I don't see any slurs. A gender critical position is not inherently a derogatory position. The song seems to be arguing for two biological sexes rather than gender (identity) based on its language.
- Oh man, those lyrics are cringe AF.
  
  Yep, just seems like an ordinary rap song to me.
- There isn't one, as far as I can tell. The song is cringe as hell and asinine but I don't see any slurs.
- Is this a religion they're insulting here? Because the response to it is very reminiscient of how ultra conservative religious people respond to their beliefs being challenged.
  Do yourselves a favor and grow a thicker skin, people. It's just an incredibly stupid joke, and the world will never be rid of incredibly stupid jokes, unfortunately.

Spotify took a similar policy to R Kelly.

I'm offended at their manipulation of album art. They're trampling my sacred beliefs of preservation of original work! I guess what I find sacred didn't matter so much as some gross peoples' fetishes.

Or, you know... Just dont listen to the song if you dont like it?
- Sure. And just don't listen to fascist speeches if you don't like them. Just let those nazis live their best life.
  An extreme example, but my point is that we can't just ignore hate speech.
  I see no way in which that attitude will end well.
  
  Not extreme at all. You have all the right to think what you want, but let others decide for themself.

145 comments