Explicit content filter not working

[Tim_Penfold]

Plan

Family

Country

United Kingdom

Device

Samsung Galaxy S8 and Bowers & Wilkins Formation Flex

Operating System

Android

My Question or Issue

In the last week or so, the explicit content filter has stopped working. The setting is off to block explicit content in the settings on my phone. When I play a Spotify playlist, it still plays all the explicit content songs that are marked with the E symbol. If I open the playlist and press on one of the songs with E symbol, the app will warn me that it is explicit and direct me to change the settings. But if I just leave the playlist playing and the next song is explicit, it will continue to play it anyway. So it obviously knows what is explicit and what isn't, and knows that my setting is not to play explicit content. I have young children in the house and Spotify is playing some really explicit lyrics to them. This is unacceptable.

The filter used to be terrible. Then it seemed to work quite well for a few months. And now it is terrible again.

[Ivan]

Hey there @Tim_Penfold, 

Thanks for reaching out to us about this - we'll be glad to help you out here.

Most common issues can be fixed with a quick reinstall of the app. In some situations however, a clean (more thorough) reinstall of the app might be needed. This way you can start afresh with Spotify on your phone. 

Check out this help page in order to find the steps for clean reinstall on the affected device. 

If it doesn’t do the trick, we’ll provide you with further help. 

We'll look out for your reply. 

[Tim_Penfold]

A quick reinstall sorted it. Thanks.

[Tim_Penfold]

It worked for a few days. Now the explicit content filter is not working again. Same as before - on a playlist, it plays songs marked with the E symbol even though I have the setting to play explicit content turned off. If I manually select the song, it won't let me play it. But if I leave the playlist playing, it will play all songs, whether marked explicit or not. Also, if I press the next track arrow, it will play an explicit track. Definitely a bug.

[AmaiYasai]

I'm having this issue as well but with the Windows PC app. I go into the settings, and I make sure to turn off Explicit music, and then it says to restart the app to set the settings. It restarts then i go into the settings, and it's turned back on 😕 I'm a streamer so I would like to not have explicit lyrics playing in my music. Please fix this issue Spotify!

[DML300]

Ivan,

We're having this problem as well. And quite honestly, users shouldn't have to uninstall / reinstall the application just to toggle the explicit settings on and off. That's terrible app programming on Spotify's part. This is a pretty important issue to users with children, so let's expedite this request, eh?

[tamfriesen]

Also having this issue. We play Spotify playlists at my office and we can’t have explicit songs playing or we could get complaints from our patients. Now I have to go in a manually remove explicit songs from the queue every time we put on a playlist. It’s very annoying. 

[Pvm1]

Hey spotify

how about you fix this? It’s completely unacceptable to just try brush it under the ‘switch it off and back on again’ routine

[ericb45696]

 Same here. Also why can i click 'remove from list' for E songs on the app on my phone, but then they reapear on desktop, and again when I open again on phone.  And seemingly zero way to actually even change it at all on desktop. I am just now finally getting into spotify and was excited about possibly having a great new music source but having random songs with the N word used repeatedly pop up on lists is beyond annoying and a deal breaker.

[joeltheconner]

Same here. Any "explicit" song will stay play, even though we have it set to not play. Very frustrating 😞

[Tim_Penfold]

I have narrowed the problem down to Spotify Connect. I have tried on three different devices I have that have Spotify Connect and Bluetooth. With the "Play Explicit Content" set to Off in the app on my phone, when I play content on my phone or from my phone via Bluetooth, the filter works. But if I play the same content on the devices using Spotify Connect, (Bluetooth disconnected now), it plays songs with the Explicit symbol (E in a box).

If I click on a song with the E symbol, it tells me that my settings are set to not play explicit content. But if I press the > button to skip to a track with explicit content, it will play it. If I leave a playlist playing, it will play all songs, even those with the E symbol. 

The devices I tested are Amazon Echo Input, Bowers & Wilkins Formation Flex and Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Wireless. I have an Amazon Echo Dot too which I am confident has the same problem. The Amazon devices are used by wife and four year old. We really don't want them playing very explicit content.

Now if only there was a way of getting someone at Spotify to pay attention to this problem and fix it...🤔

[Mario]

Hey there @Tim_Penfold , 

Thank you for reaching out to us and for the information you provided.

In this case we would recommend you to do a clean reinstall of the app. That should fix the problem.

Also - have you heard about  Spotify Kids?

Spotify kids is an app of playground of sound for young listeners, The app is full of singalongs, soundtracks and playlists made just for them.

Note: This is available for users with a Premium Family subscription.  

Let us know how everything goes. We're always one reply away.

Cheers!

[Pvm1]

so they continue to beat the drum of reinstall or if it's too much of an issue, then use the kids platform. Head in the sand approach doesn't work for me. With regret, I've cancelled my account and making my way over to Apple

[Jeremy]

Hey there @Pvm1,

Thank you for your post.

A clean reinstall of the app will make sure there's no old cache files causing this.

We also suggest that all of you who's still experience this after a clean reinstall to try with another internet connection.

If it's possible - can you log in with another account - such as a friend's or a family member's to see if the issue persist.

We'll keep an eye out for replies in this thread.

Cheers!

[willstones]

I’m having this happen as well. Same as others, when shuffle playing a playlist with explicit content in, over a Spotify Connect device on an account and tablet that has the explicit content restriction turned on. It correctly won’t let me play explicit songs in the playlist by clicking on them, but they will play through random shuffling. 

As others have said, a reinstall every time this happens is unacceptable because that means it’s already happened and explicit content has been played. 

[Alex]

Hi there @willstones,

Thanks for reaching out about this.

If you're playing music using a connect device such as a smart speaker, explicit content may be played during shuffle mode, because the speaker sends direct requests for the next track in the playlist, and cannot have explicit filtering enabled on itself. 

So if you're casting music from your phone or pc and try selecting explicit songs, they won't be played because the explicit filter is active on the device you're streaming on.

In this case we'd recommend not adding explicit songs and other content you don't want to hear on the connect device to the playlists you're shuffling.

Hope this clears things up.

[willstones]

Thanks for the quick reply Alex.  I understand why this is happening, I am merely adding my voice to those who want it to be fixed so my family can play music in our house without worrying about explicit content being played. 

Your suggestion about not adding explicit content to playlists does not work for community created/shared playlists which we use regularly. 

[Ver]

Hey @willstones,

Thanks for getting back to us 🙂

We appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback with us and will make sure to pass it on to the right team. You can also have a look in our Idea Exchange to see if someone else has already made a similar suggestion. If there isn't one, you can give these steps a go and submit your idea. That way other users can also support it.

Here you can find more information about how your feedback reaches Spotify. 

If you have questions, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We'll be happy to help.

[willstones]

Looks like this suggestion has already been made, linked here for others to vote on. 

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Mobile-Connect-Enable-Explicit-Content-Filter-over-Spoti...

[Michaelvroom]

And what should be a bug fix got closed because not enough votes... What a stupid system.

Time to start looking for a new music service that I can actually block explicit songs on when playing a community playlist on my Google home speakers.