Questions & AnswersCategory: TechnologyHow do you filter explicit songs on Spotify?
admin Staff asked 4 years ago

On the website spotify.com, how to you filter explicit songs? I’m in account settings and see no explicit filter options.

1 Answers
admin Staff answered 4 years ago

You can’t filter explicit songs on the Spotify website; you can only filter using the Spotify app. Here’s how:

  1. In the Spotify app, tap the Settings gear icon in the top right corner
  2. Tap Explicit Content
  3. Tap the toggle to either turn on or off the Explicit Content filter.
  4. Done!

A couple notes, however regarding how well Spotify’s Explicit Content filter works.
Does Spotify’s Explicit Content Filter Work?
First, even though the Explicit Content filter is on (meaning Spotify will not allow songs to play that include bad language), it still shows song titles. So if a song has a bad word in the title, that title will still show. Not great if kids are using the Spotify app!

Second, according to Spotify, only content that has been labeled as explicit by the publisher will be filtered. Songs labeled as explicit by their publisher are marked with an “E” just before the song title. What this means is if an artist says a bad word in a song but that song is not labeled explicit with an “E” next to the title, Spotify will still allow it to be played even though the explicit content filter is on. An example is the song “Be Like That” by Kane Brown, Swae Lee and Khalid. A lyric that is repeated throughout the song is “I wish I never met ‘yo _ss.” Most would consider this A-word to be one they wouldn’t want their 8-year-old repeating, yet it is not filtered by Spotify because the song was not labeled as “explicit” by its publisher.

Read more from a mom who answered the question “should I let my kid listen to Spotify?”