LOS ANGELES: Nursery rhymes and Disney soundtracks have long been the bane of parents using Spotify, and now at last the audio streaming app is launching its first-ever toggle to remove children's music from personal recommendations.
Parents who use Spotify to play music for their children have long complained about kids' music cluttering up their personal music recommendations and sometimes even appearing at the top of the annual Wrapped review.
For users who don't want KPop Demon Hunters and Peppa Pig to clog up their app, the new opt-out is being launched for Spotify Premium and Spotify Free users.
Users who choose to exclude children's content can still search for, listen to and save children's tracks to playlists without any problem. Those tracks will simply no longer feed into personalised playlists like "Discover Weekly" and "Release Radar".
One practical detail: A change will not only affect future listening. According to Spotify, music already listened to in the Kids & Family genre will also be removed retroactively from the taste profile. That applies to personal top songs and top artists in Wrapped as well.
Individual playlists and tracks could already be excluded
The no-kids toggle is not the first feature to give users selective control over what they are recommended or hear. It was already possible to exclude individual playlists and tracks from the taste profile.
The new setting is being rolled out gradually worldwide for users of the free version and for Premium subscribers on mobile devices. Users who want to use the new feature need to do the following:
The route to the switch runs – through the settings, of course
- Tap the profile picture in the top left of the Spotify app.
- Open "Settings and Privacy".
- Select "Content and Display".
- Deactivate the switch next to "Include music for kids and family in taste profile".
If the switch does not appear, it may be because the Spotify app is not up to date and needs to be updated first via the Play Store or App Store. – dpa
