Stalker using Spotify to intimidate and harass me

[user-removed]

Plan

Free/Premium

Country

Device

(iPhone 8, Samsung Galaxy 9, Macbook Pro late 2016)

Operating System

(iOS 10, Android Oreo, Windows 10,etc.)

My Question or Issue

I have a stalker who created a collaborative playlist and added me to it and named it something derogatory to get my attention and insult me. He later changed it to his control only, but now it is still on my home screen even though I cleared it from my recently played. I also cannot block him, so he can see my activity even thought I am not friends with him. He thought I was communicating with him through the songs I played. This is a problem. I do not want to stop using the service because other than this it is great. Here is his profile: https://open.spotify.com/user/elm33?si=YB_0P4CLQGKvhY5aDDsDBA

[user-removed]

Hi, yes I have a stalker who created a collaborative playlist and added me to it and named it something derogatory to get my attention and insult me. He later changed it to his control only, but now it is still on my home screen even though I cleared it from my recently played. I also cannot block him, so he can see my activity even thought I am not friends with him. He thought I was communicating with him through the songs I played. This is a problem. I do not want to stop using the service because other than this it is great.

[user-removed]

Plan

Free/Premium

Country

Device

(iPhone 8, Samsung Galaxy 9, Macbook Pro late 2016)

Operating System

(iOS 10, Android Oreo, Windows 10,etc.)

My Question or Issue

I have a stalker who created a collaborative playlist and added me to it and named it something derogatory to get my attention and insult me. He later changed it to his control only, but now it is still on my home screen even though I cleared it from my recently played. I also cannot block him, so he can see my activity even thought I am not friends with him. He thought I was communicating with him through the songs I played. This is a problem. I do not want to stop using the service because other than this it is great. Here is his profile: https://open.spotify.com/user/elm33?si=YB_0P4CLQGKvhY5aDDsDBA

[Joel-M]

Hey @user-removed,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community! A Rock Star has sent this message to the Moderators on Spotify. From there the Moderators can see what is going on, and they will deal with this issue.

[Joel-M]

Hey @user-removed,

So a moderator from Spotify did reply and here is what they've said to do about this issue:

You can unfollow any playlists created by that user, and if you don't listen to them, they will eventually disappear from your Home screen. You can also report inappropriate content following the steps here. 

There are a few ways to hide your listening activity from your followers. 

1. Hide activity:
   On your Spotify desktop or mobile app, you can go to Settings and find under Social, the option to switch off Share my listening activity on Spotify. 
   Similarly, it is also possible to hide Recently Played Artists from showing. These selections will remain the same, even after long inactivity or after restarting Spotify (unlike the Private Mode). 
2. Private Mode:  
   By default, anyone who follows you on Spotify can see what you’re listening to Friend Activity. If you don’t want others to know what you’re listening to, you can start a Private Session as described on this support page. Just keep in mind that the Private Session ends automatically when you restart Spotify or long inactivity.

While it's currently not possible to remove or block followers, the Customer Support Team can help you by creating a new account with an anonymous username with only numbers and transferring your playlists to the new account without any followers. 

When setting up a new account, it'd be good to set all of the playlists as private. The support page on Private Playlists describes how to do so on various devices.

You should know that they will still be visible to the recipients if you share a secret playlist. The recipients can share, play, and follow the playlists, which will then appear on those who follow them.

You might also want to consider adding your +VOTE to this idea if you'd like to block unwanted followers.

I hoped this helped.

[Fraek]

So no help really. Another case of Spotify being a unsafe site as they simply refuse to let us control what devices are connected to our own accounts

[grubyak]

@jelyla there is feature request for that https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Social-Block-Followers/idi-p/310496 - basically spotify do not care about users privacy. Request for blocking stalkers was requested on 2013-03-03 (7 years, 10 months ago) and upvoted almost 11k times... spotify was busy working on "your top 2020 songs" and now they are busy on "your top 2021 songs" feature, so do not bother them with privacy and security concerns 😂

[Fraek]

I don't get it. People are complaining about this all over the net. Why isn't it bigger news. Everyone needs to leave negative reviews on trust websites and similar until they fix it 

[user-removed]

Update: the stalker's playlist finally disappeared from the Spotify PC software homepage. There was nothing I did other than never click on it to visit it. I do not know whether the stalker can see my activity or not. There is a temporary protective order in place against him and in his last violation he made no mention of Spotify. Thank you for your thoughts!

[CantingCave]

Just wondering, is it possible to sue spotify for this ? Like this has to be a privacy violation ! This has been going on for way to long.