Senate Investigation Reveals Spotify Removed Over 57,000 Podcasts Promoting Illegal Opioids and Prescription Drugs
核心洞察
Spotify (搜索) removed over 57,000 podcast episodes and 3,500 accounts promoting illegal drugs between May and November 2025, following initial media reports by Business Insider (搜索) and CNN (搜索).
Senator Maggie Hassan's investigation found Spotify (搜索) failed to report any of the removed content to law enforcement, including one episode linking to a website later seized by the DEA.
Spotify (搜索) characterized the podcasts as a "spam attack" aimed at boosting search engine visibility for online pharmacies, noting 94% had never been streamed.
A sweeping Senate investigation has revealed that Spotify (搜索) removed more than 57,000 podcast episodes promoting illegal opioids and prescription drugs last year, a figure far exceeding initial estimates when the problem first came to light in May 2025.
The findings, published Thursday by the office of Senator Maggie Hassan, a New Hampshire Democrat and ranking member of the Joint Economic Committee, detail the scale of illicit drug promotion on one of the world's largest audio streaming platforms and raise serious questions about Spotify (搜索)'s content moderation practices and its failure to alert law enforcement.
Scale of the Problem
According to data Spotify (搜索) provided to investigators, the company removed over 57,000 individual podcast episodes, including more than 3,000 shows and 3,500 accounts promoting illegal drugs, between May and November 2025. This stands in stark contrast to fewer than 100 accounts removed the prior year. Spotify acknowledged it had "less complete data for previous years, as we did not track removals in this way," according to the report.
The podcasts in question were largely devoid of spoken content and failed to attract meaningful engagement. Spotify (搜索) told investigators that 94% of the phony podcasts had never been streamed and 99% had fewer than 10 streams, which the platform defines as listening sessions longer than 30 seconds. However, a handful reached wider audiences — two episodes totaling almost 13,000 streams directed users to purchase the prescription stimulant modafinil online, including with bitcoin.
Failure to Report to Law Enforcement
Hassan's investigation found that Spotify (搜索) did not report any of the removed content to law enforcement, despite one episode flagged by investigators in July 2025 linking to "opioidstores.com," a website that was later seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration (搜索) and other federal agencies.
"Failure to swiftly detect and remove dangerous content and also report it to law enforcement can lead to harrowing consequences — whether that's a teenager who buys drugs online that could be laced with deadly fentanyl or a senior who falls for a scam that wipes out their retirement savings," Hassan said in a statement.
Spotify (搜索) maintained that the podcast linking to "opioidstores.com" was spam and stated, "Spotify has a long history of working with law enforcement when content violates the law."
Spotify (搜索)'s Response
Spotify (搜索) characterized the phony podcasts as a "spam attack" designed to boost the purported online pharmacies' visibility in search engines rather than a direct attempt to sell drugs to Spotify users. "Drugs cannot be bought or sold on Spotify," a company spokesperson said.
Laura Batey, a Spotify (搜索) spokesperson, told CNN (搜索): "Bad actors attempting to abuse our platform will always try to circumvent or evade our detection. When we are made aware of such attempts, we act quickly to remove the content and update our detection systems accordingly."
The company denied being slow to act, stating it began purging the podcasts as soon as it became aware of them in May 2025. "We have a 24/7 operation in place to tackle these evolving threats, and we are regularly identifying and removing content that violates our guidelines," a Spotify (搜索) spokesperson said.
Spotify (搜索) also noted that none of the drug sales podcasts were monetized on its platform and that it had earned no revenue from the content.
Persistent Issues Across Platforms
Despite months of engagement with investigators, the problem persisted. Hassan's office found a "public playlist" on Spotify (搜索) advertising "oxycodone online" as late as December 2025. The investigation also identified similar phony podcasts on other streaming platforms, including an episode advertising "Xanax Pills Online" on iHeart (搜索) and a series promoting other drugs on Amazon Music (搜索) and Podchaser (搜索).
"As criminals use AI to perpetuate scams and other dangerous actions faster and in larger quantities, all online platforms need to step up, protect their users, and enforce comprehensive strategies to remove illegal content," Hassan said.
The senator's report underscores broader concerns about the sale of counterfeit or illicit drugs to young people through online platforms, an issue that has drawn urgent attention from parents, experts, and lawmakers following multiple teen overdose deaths from pills purchased online.