Drug Sites Hijacked Spotify’s Search Ranking Through Fake Podcasts, Report Finds

For the past year, Spotify has been softly purging tens of thousands of podcasts that advertised amerciable online pharmacies. A study released Thursday by Senator Maggie Hassan, ranking subordinate of the Joint Economic Committee, faults the institution for acting lone aft quality outlets exposed the contented and her bureau spent astir a twelvemonth pressing for answers.

None of what it removed was sent to instrumentality enforcement, the study says.

Spotify reportedly removed much than 57,000 podcast episodes and 3,000 shows, and took enforcement enactment against 3,500 accounts, each pushing links to amerciable online pharmacies advertizing opioids, benzodiazepines, and stimulants for merchantability without a prescription. Nevertheless, the study frames the cleanup arsenic a moderation failure.

The study leans connected 1 examination successful particular: Spotify acted against much than 3,500 accounts for cause contented successful 2025 but less than 100 the twelvemonth before. The committee presents the leap arsenic grounds the institution moved lone aft it came nether scrutiny. Spotify offered a antithetic explanation: that its older counts are incomplete because, arsenic it says successful the report, it changed the mode it tracks removals past year.

A fistful of the offending podcasts did find an audience. Of the 5 that drew much than 100 plays, 2 unneurotic pulled astir 13,000 streams and walked listeners done buying modafinil, a wakefulness drug, by sending bitcoin. Another, with 125 plays, linked to sites posing arsenic pharmacy marketplaces for crab and HIV medications. Those were the exceptions, but they pointed to moving ways to wage and order.

The numbers are alarming, and the stakes are real, Hassan says: Counterfeit pills bought online are often chopped with fentanyl, and teenagers are among the astir exposed.

“In the property of AI, each online platforms request to deploy blase efforts to continually place and instrumentality down amerciable content,” Hassan tells WIRED. “Failure to swiftly observe and region unsafe contented and besides study it to instrumentality enforcement tin pb to harrowing consequences—whether that’s a teen who buys drugs online that could beryllium laced with deadly fentanyl oregon a elder who falls for a scam that wipes retired their status savings.”

Asked astir its attack to AI podcasts, Spotify spokesperson Laura Batey says the institution “has a agelong past of moving with instrumentality enforcement erstwhile contented violates the law.” She did not accidental whether Spotify makes proactive referrals to the Drug Enforcement Agency, oregon however often. Batey said Spotify is inactive looking into WIRED’s question astir whether it tracks clicks connected those links.

Spotify told the committee that its signifier is to alert authorities lone erstwhile it identifies a credible menace of superior harm: an imminent hazard to someone's beingness oregon safety. The podcasts, which it had classified arsenic a search-optimization strategy alternatively than grounds of existent cause sales, ne'er met that bar, the institution said.

While Spotify did not accidental whether it reports amerciable cause enactment to the DEA, the study says the company's competitors reply that question directly: Snap regularly makes proactive referrals to the agency, and Meta says it cooperates with instrumentality enforcement to combat cause sales. Spotify's position, according to the report, is that, arsenic a licensed-content streaming service, its obligations disagree from those of a societal network.

At slightest 1 of the removed podcasts pointed determination instrumentality enforcement was already looking. A amusement the committee flagged successful July 2025—listed nether a drawstring of nonsense characters and titled to advertise a “licensed online vendor”—linked to a tract called Opioidstores.com. That domain was aboriginal seized by national prosecutors successful Brooklyn, moving with the DEA, the FDA, and different agencies. Spotify removed the podcast but, by its ain account, reported nothing.