Spotify Is Down For Thousands Of Users

Spotify is currently down for many of its users, with more than 71,000 outages reported on DownDetector in the past half hour.

Spotify tweeted to confirm it was experiencing problems with its service, saying it was also investigating what's going on.

"Something’s not quite right, and we’re looking into it," the tweet from Spotify Status - the account that provides updates about Spotify's current status - said, also thanking users for reporting the problem.

Just before 6pm this evening (Tuesday 8 March), outages reports started flooding into the website DownDetector - peaking at 6.15pm with 71,954 reports.

Many users also jumped onto social media to speak about the issue, with one tweeting: "Spotify being down is way worse than any other social media platform being down."

Another said: "Spotify the one app that’s not allowed to glitch. instagram can be down Spotify can NOT."

A third said they initially worried they'd been 'hacked', writing: "I thought i got hacked man... I got logged out of Spotify on my PC and my phone, and then it said my account didn't exist? S*** I got scared man."

Another experienced the same fear, saying: "Bruhhh why is Spotify down I literally thought I was hacked."

Earlier this year, a number of artists and users began boycotting Spotify amid concerns that Joe Rogan had been using his podcast to spread Covid-19 misinformation - pressure that only increased after a compilation of clips showed him using the N-word 24 times.

A group of 270 scientists, doctors and experts wrote to Spotify about the issue, saying in their letter: "With an estimated 11 million listeners per episode, JRE [Joe Rogan Experience], which is hosted exclusively on Spotify, is the world's largest podcast and has tremendous influence.

"Spotify has a responsibility to mitigate the spread of misinformation on its platform, though the company presently has no misinformation policy."

Neil Young was one of many names who requested to have their content removed from Spotify, explaining that he wasn't actually calling on Rogan's podcast to be taken down.

"I support free speech. I have never been in favor of censorship," he said.

"Private companies have the right to choose what they profit from, just as I can choose not to have my music support a platform that disseminates harmful information.

"I am happy and proud to stand in solidarity with the front line health care worker who risk their lives every day to help others."

In a statement, Spotify said: "We want all the world's music and audio content to be available to Spotify users.

"With that comes great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom for creators.

"We have detailed content policies in place and we've removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic.

"We regret Neil's decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon."

Other musicians and podcasters, including Joni Mitchell and Roxane Gay, also followed suit.