This week on The Disclaimer, WMSE's weekly culture chat with Ryan Schleicher, Milwaukee Record's Matt Wild and I, we're looking at what went wrong with Spotify's seemingly reasonable "hate conduct policy," which would have removed artists like R. Kelly and XXXTentacion from the service's promoted playlists (but not the service altogether). Despite its good intentions, the policy was walked back within weeks after push back from the industry, and reportedly musicians including Kendrick Lamar. So what went wrong, and why does the music industry, even more so than the rest of the entertainment industry, seem to have such a difficult time holding abusers accountable? We have a discussion about how the industry has stumbled in the past, why it's stumbling now, and what role listeners and critics could best play to ensure it doesn't stumble in the future. No, there are no easy answers, but there are certainly plenty of wrong answers we could start by avoiding.
What do you think? As always, feel free to weigh in on our Facebook page. You can stream the episode below, and subscribe to The Disclaimer on iTunes.
