Elizabeth Culliford and Dawn Chmielewski. Supantha Moukherjee

(Reuters). (Reuters) –An architect at Spotify (NYSE)’s podcasting strategy, one of her key representatives spoke about the most pressing challenge that platforms face: How to moderate content.

Dawn Ostroff is the Chief Content and Advertising Officer. She was a television veteran and had brought Joe Rogan, a U.S. podcaster, and top-talent to Spotify. Ostroff had been asking about the backlash against COVID-19 misinformation on Joe Rogan’s podcast, as Neil Young and others yanked music from their websites. According to Ostroff, companies were faced with a dilemma of moderation and censorship. There was no silver bullet.

Moderation of content has proven to be a challenging task for online platforms. Social media giants Meta (NASDAQ:), Twitter (NYSE:), have come under increasing pressure to make moderation transparent and invest in artificial intelligence and human review systems. However, podcasting often slips by the radar.

The criticisms surrounding “The Joe Rodgan Experience”, Spotify’s exclusive license in 2020 for a record-breaking $100 million, raises questions regarding Spotify’s approach to moderation. As Spotify grows from an audio streaming platform to a podcast service and an investor in original content, experts and researchers say that this has increased scrutiny of Spotify’s current policy.

The podcast industry’s largely hands-off attitude to moderation is also highlighted, in part due to its fragmented and open nature.

Different podcasts can be hosted on different platforms. They are sent via RSS feeds to directories apps such as Apple (NASDAQ: Podcasts) or Spotify, which catalogue shows for listeners. Moderation is more difficult due to the volume and length of audio – thousands of podcasts or hours long – as well as technical issues in transcribing and analysing it.

Spotify added podcasts to its platform in 2015. They made an even bigger push for the medium by buying Anchor and Gimlet podcast networks, and hundreds of millions more on content deals with stars like Kim Kardashian or former President Barack Obama.

Spotify made public its rules for its platform online in response to Rogan’s scandal last month as the podcast library reached 3.6 million. Spotify stated that over 20,000 episodes were removed due to COVID-19 misinformation.

Spotify, unlike Twitter and Facebook does not publish transparency reports which would provide public accounting for content removal. Spotify spokesperson said that they are working towards this goal.

Spotify’s Chief Executive Daniel Ek said that Spotify knew it would test its teams with its new podcasting strategy. It was “implementing several unique measures to combat misinformation, provide more transparency and help with reporting.”

The process of moderating audio usually involves conversion to text and the use of automated tools that can filter or highlight moments for human review. Experts say it’s time-consuming and inconsistent. This complexity is due to the differences in the tones of the speakers, changing terminology and slang between languages as well as the need for contextualization within long discussions.

Mark Little, co-founder and CEO of Kinzen said audio moderation is “a perfect thunderstorm”. Kinzen was contracted by Spotify as a service to warn it about brewing issues concerning election integrity.

You’re confronted with something unique, this volume …, containing a format that challenges the type of textual analysis we have used in the past.

Ek described Spotify’s global content moderator team as a large organization in a Reuters interview dated February 2, 2012. Ek and a spokesman refused to provide details on Spotify’s investments in content moderation.

Spotify has third party reviewers who help to find harmful content. The spokesman stated that Spotify’s content team receives advice from 12 partners who are experts in hate speech and harassment as well as extremism, misinformation, and child exploitation.

Spotify refused to identify the names of these consultants. These consultants provide insight to Spotify’s in-house content moderation team, who makes all decisions regarding content moderation.

Spotify has added over 1.2 million podcasts in its library last year. Experts in the industry argue that there should be more moderation as content on major platforms increases in number and shows are renewed.

I’m hesitant to just rely on “it’s difficult” because it is hard. Is it as hard as creating a multi-billion-dollar, multinational organization that basically is … the go-to audio app?” Owen Grover is the ex-CEO of Pocket Casts, a podcasting app.

WEB OF SERVICES

This saga raises both questions about Spotify’s licenses for shows as well as the larger challenge moderating presents to the podcasting industry.

Podcasts are uploaded to podcasting platforms. They then get distributed to listing apps such as Apple, Google (NASDAQ) Podcasts and Amazon (NASDAQ) Music via RSS feeds.

Industry experts stated that the patchwork nature and diversity of directory apps and hosting sites dilutes responsibility, making it difficult to enforce non-exclusive podcasts. Spotify does not host podcasts. However, it has hosting platforms like Anchor and Megaphone, which are home to Rogan’s podcast.

Spotify allows podcasts that are not hosted on a Spotify-owned platform to submit their shows for approval before they can be published. Nick Hilton of Podot (a UK-based independent podcast production firm) said it was easy to approve a Spotify show. It can only take a few moments.

In interviews, several hosting sites stated that they do not have the time or the desire to review all content hosted. Blubrry CEO Todd Cochrane said that “we don’t act like moderators”. However, it does respond to takedown requests. He cited the instance of taking out measurement services from white supremacist groups.

RedCircle CEO Mike Kadin said that when they get wind of something, we would just grab a bag full of chips, turn up the speed to 1.5x, and then sit down and listen. The cost of transcribing all podcast content is prohibitive.

According to industry experts and researchers, podcasting is open and accessible. However, more scrutiny could result in greater investment in content review and improvements in moderation tools.

Daniel Adrian, Acast’s general counsel and podcast platform Acast’s general counsel said that “We will respond to any market changes here.” We don’t know what this will lead to.”