Is Spotify Anti-Immigrant or Anti-Human?

By Juan Carlos Ramírez

In August 2025, the United States government, through the Department of Homeland Security, launched an aggressive advertising campaign aimed at recruiting agents to locate, arrest, and deport undocumented immigrants with criminal records. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) offered bonuses of up to $50,000, student loan forgiveness, and retirement benefits to those willing to join its ranks.

Although these ads appeared across multiple media outlets and platforms, Spotify bore the brunt of public backlash. Users of its free tier voiced their disapproval through the #BoycottSpotify movement, calling on people to stop using the platform and seek alternatives.

Is Spotify truly an anti-immigrant platform? It’s hard to say. There is no evidence suggesting that the Swedish giant supports Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policies. While it’s entirely possible that some executives—particularly in the U.S.—hold Republican sympathies, that alone cannot be taken as proof that Spotify is an oppressive company. At least not for that reason.

Disney continues to maintain business relationships with suppliers accused of forced labor. Apple has sourced cobalt—a mineral used in battery manufacturing—from conflict zones in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Google and Amazon participate in Project Nimbus, providing artificial intelligence and cloud services to the Israeli military, which is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths. Microsoft develops the IVAS augmented reality goggles for soldiers in combat. And so on.

Are we going to cancel our Disney+ subscriptions? Stop using Office or Google? Probably not. Like it or not, modern—especially urban—life is deeply shaped by large corporations, and unless we are heirs to a staggering fortune or owners of niche businesses, we will almost certainly end up using, voluntarily or not, services from companies closely tied to arms manufacturing, child labor, illegal resource extraction, or workplace harassment.

Wherever you are, chances are the nearest aquifer is currently being drained by Coca-Cola or another multinational that has no real need to be accountable, because it can afford whatever fines are placed in its way.

A few days ago, Rubén Albarrán, lead singer of mexican band Café Tacvba, announced that the band had formally requested the removal of its catalog from Spotify, arguing that the platform’s policies and decisions are not aligned with their values or the message they seek to convey. At the same time, he encouraged fans to use other services to listen to their music, such as Amazon Music.

Albarrán may not be aware that Amazon spent nearly ten years running a sophisticated algorithm known as “Project Nessie”, designed to manipulate market prices and maximize profits. The strategy was as simple as it was illegal. Amazon would raise the price of a given product and let the algorithm monitor whether competitors followed suit. If they did, the higher price stayed. If not, Nessie would automatically lower Amazon’s price back to its original level.

The fact that Spotify broadcast ICE propaganda does not bring me any satisfaction, but I also don’t consider it the most serious issue at hand. If anything, it’s the lesser evil. The U.S. government—like any other democratic government—has the right to advertise its policies through whatever media channels it deems appropriate. According to sources cited by Rolling Stone, the Department of Homeland Security paid Spotify $74,000 to air these ads. This amount is not only small in terms of government spending, but also negligible compared to the $3 million paid to Google, YouTube, and Meta for the same service.

So why is Spotify facing such a strong backlash? On one hand, being the most important company in your sector comes with drawbacks. Do you remember childhood, when parents called every Dragon Ball character “Goku” or every Pokémon on TV “Pikachu”? Even now, they may refer to any streaming service as “Netflix.” Spotify is the king of its field, with approximately 281 million users, compared to 120 million on YouTube Music, its closest rival. More importantly, Spotify has over 450 million free-tier users, to whom it can deliver highly targeted advertising.

I know—it sounds like this text sides with corporatism. But nothing could be further from the truth. These paragraphs do not defend the interests of a multinational drowning in money. I simply believe context matters before adopting a position that will change absolutely nothing. If we are going to sanction a company for its marketing or operational decisions, fairness would require doing so across the board—and that is, in practical terms, impossible.

A few days ago, I was listening to Spotify’s “Discover Weekly” playlist, which the platform curates for users every Monday. A song came on that strongly reminded me of Barry White, but with something off—an irritation I couldn’t quite pinpoint. The melody wasn’t bad, the arrangements fit the rhythm almost too perfectly. That raised my suspicions, so I looked up the band.

Justefunk Funk was the name of the supposed group. Their bio reads: “Modern soul and funk, deep grooves and sincere emotions. Justefunk Funk builds a warm, elegant, and timeless universe.” Suspicious, right? You can probably see where this is going. Yes—the dreaded AI.

It’s known that Spotify has integrated AI-generated music into its catalog, though the scale remains unclear. The platform has only stated that it will seek to regulate such content and notify users when they are listening to AI-made music. The supposed band Justefunk Funk has around six million streams as of the time this text was written (January 12, 2026). Based on Spotify’s payout rates, an artist with that number of streams would receive roughly $30,000—shared, of course, among intermediaries.

So what are we left with? Sitting back and watching magnates manipulate the market at will while we binge the new season of Pluribus? I think it goes beyond that. While this is a David versus Goliath scenario—where David is unimaginably weaker and Goliath has access to satellites, oil, and lithium—the reality is that each of us can do something from where we stand. Or at least, I think so.

This column is not a tutorial on how to overthrow corporate giants. It’s an invitation to analyze and reconsider the attributes we assign to the multinationals that seduce us with sleek apps and personalized recommendations. The algorithm knows us, watches us like the sentinels in The Matrix, and often conquers us. This is a human–machine relationship that goes far beyond a monthly subscription.

Perhaps this is a good moment to scrutinize and question Isaac Asimov’s Laws of Robotics:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

   
   

2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

   
   

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.