Spotify, the world’s leading music streaming platform, is facing intense criticism and boycott calls following CEO Daniel Ek’s announcement of a €600m ($702m) investment in Helsing, a German defence startup specialising in AI-powered combat drones and military software.
The move, announced on 17 June, has sparked widespread outrage from musicians, activists and social media users who accuse Ek of funnelling profits from music streaming into the military industry.
Many have started calling on users to cancel their subscriptions to the service.
“Finally cancelling my Spotify subscription – why am I paying for a fuckass app that works worse than it did 10 years ago, while their CEO spends all my money on technofascist military fantasies?” said one user on X.
I boycotted them a long time ago when I found out they donated to Trump’s campaign, despite being a Swedish company.
I also newly started boycotting them for the same reasons. Plus they don’t give enough to the musicians, and support AI music.
Been off Spotify since they have Rogan his platform, which contributed to Trump also.
Highly illegal.
It’s legal through a US subsidiary if the funds come from US operations. The morality is questionable though
when due process is completely ignored, then you can be pretty sure that “legal” has no meaning anymore. especially seeing as how the people who are supposed to be enforcing these “laws” are the ones who are ignoring them
Honey this is America, anything is legal if you got the money
“The land of the free”
i boycotted them when i found out they streamed drm-protected lock-in music back then, and charged us a subscription for it.
Same, took some legwork to get files for my 700-song library, but we did it. Fuck 'em.