Turkey’s competition regulator has announced it is investigating allegations of anti-competitive conduct that have been made against Spotify, including in relation to how it calculates royalties and promotes certain artists and creators.
It’s not clear if that investigation will also review the streaming service’s content moderation policies, which were heavily slated by Turkey’s Deputy Culture Minister Batuhan Mumcu on the same day the regulator made its announcement.
Writing on X, the minister said that Spotify “persistently refuses to take the necessary steps” to deal with “content that targets our religious and national values and insults the beliefs of our society”, despite lots of “previous warnings”.
Providing a little more insight into what content had particularly annoyed Mumcu, he cited user-created playlists available on Spotify with names and images which, he said, were either religiously or politically insensitive.
Some “disregard our religious sensitivities toward our Prophet Hz Muhammad”, while others target the “esteemed wife” of the country’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a way that is “incompatible with the cultural and moral values of our nation”. Poor Mrs Erdoğan.
“This irresponsibility and lack of oversight, which disregards the sensitivities of our society, has now become a legal matter”, Mumcu said, before adding, “I personally believe that legal proceedings should be initiated and I call on our competent institutions to take action”.
In its statement, Turkey’s competition regulator raises other concerns, and says it will investigate whether Spotify has violated the country’s competition laws, with a focus on three specific potential issues.
That includes whether it is “engaging in practices” that either “complicate the operations of its rivals in the online music streaming services market” or “affect the distribution of the royalties paid to various parties within the framework of its licensing relationships”. And whether or not Spotify is “discriminating between artists and content creators on the platform in various ways, including their visibility on the platform”.
At least some of that formal investigation could touch on issues that have been a cause for concern elsewhere. Competition law issues have been raised in the UK and EU in relation to Spotify’s decision - under pressure from Universal Music - to apply arbitrary thresholds that must be passed before any one track is allocated any royalties.
Critics argue that the thresholds are designed to favour the major players in music to the detriment of grassroots and independent artists. UK competition law expert Amelia Fletcher wrote to Spotify boss Daniel Ek expressing concern about the thresholds when they were first introduced in 2023.
And those thresholds - and similar rules put in place by Deezer and Amazon, again under pressure from Universal - are back in the spotlight in the EU in the context of the major’s bid to buy Downtown Music Holdings, and the ongoing investigation into that deal by the European Commission’s competition regulator.
Concerns have also been expressed elsewhere about how Spotify promotes certain artists or tracks through its editorial playlists and algorithm. Some have questioned whether certain rightsholders have preferential treatment when it comes to such promotion, while others have criticised the lack of transparency around how algorithms at Spotify - and on many other digital platforms - actually work.
There has been lots of criticism elsewhere too about Spotify’s content moderation policies, although more often in relation to podcasts, rather than music and playlists. In that domain, rules and expectations often differ greatly from country to country, sometimes depending on differing social and religious conventions, and other times depending on the politics of free speech.
In some countries - like the US - politicians often want less strict content moderation policies on free speech grounds, while in others - like the UK and EU - politicians are more willing to restrict free speech a little in a bid to deal with arguably harmful content. And in other countries political leaders just want to block anyone criticising or mocking them in particular.
All the digital platforms that allow pretty much anyone to upload content have to navigate all these issues on a country by country basis. We await to see how Spotify deals with Mumcu’s specific grievances.
When it comes to the competition regulator investigation, Spotify has already issued a statement confirming the company is “cooperating” with the regulator and “actively seeking to understand” its concerns.
A spokesperson added, “We will work toward a swift, constructive resolution with the Turkish competition authority. We comply with all applicable laws in all our operations, but we are unable to comment further as we lack details on the inspection’s scope or focus”.