Congressional Report Alleging Spotify Failed to Report Illegal Pharmacy Podcasts to Authorities

A joint congressional report released by Senator Maggie Hassan, ranking member of the Joint Economic Committee, alleges that Spotify removed more than 57,000 podcast episodes promoting illegal online pharmacies without referring the matter to law enforcement. The report criticises the platform for acting only after news outlets exposed the content and her office spent nearly a year pressing for answers, describing the cleanup as a significant moderation failure.

The committee highlights a stark discrepancy in enforcement timelines to support its claims. Spotify acted against more than 3,500 accounts for drug-related content in 2025, compared to fewer than 100 in the previous year. While the committee presents this jump as evidence that the company moved only after facing scrutiny, Spotify attributes the increase to a change in how it tracks removals, stating that previous counts were incomplete.

Specific examples of high-engagement fake podcasts included two episodes with approximately 13,000 streams that guided listeners to purchase modafinil via Bitcoin, and another with 125 plays linking to sites posing as pharmacy marketplaces for cancer and HIV medications. One flagged podcast linked to Opioidstores.com, a domain later seized by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn working with the DEA and FDA; Spotify removed the podcast but reported nothing to authorities.

Spotify defended its actions, stating it only reports credible threats of serious harm and classifying the content as a search-optimisation scheme rather than evidence of direct drug sales. The company told the committee that 94 percent of the removed episodes drew zero plays, indicating that the operators’ goal was to exploit Spotify’s standing with search engines to push illicit pharmacy sites up Google’s rankings, rather than to attract listeners.

While Spotify announced new AI protections for music in September 2025, having removed 75 million spam tracks, it stated these measures were specific to music and that it has no policy against AI-generated podcasts. Competitors Snap and Meta reportedly make proactive referrals to the DEA, while iHeartMedia has pledged that its published podcasts are "guaranteed human," contrasting with Spotify’s position that its obligations as a licensed-content streaming service differ from those of a social network.