That’s why Spotify bought the tech company Kinzen

7 October 20222 years ago babelfish

Spotify acquired content moderation technology company Kinzen to address the platform's security concerns

Spotify enlists the Kinzen company to fight disinformation.

The Swedish audio streaming service announced that it has acquired Kinzen, an Irish tech company that helped it identify malicious content on the platform.

The acquisition is part of Spotify's efforts to tackle malicious content on its streaming platform after the Rogan case in early 2022 : The Joe Rogan Experience podcast was accused of spreading disinformation about Covid-19.

Spotify subsequently revised its policies on Covid-19 and disinformation, although critics and experts argued that the actual changes did not have a major impact. Today's announcement of the Kinzen acquisition is an indication that even that step wasn't enough: Spotify needed to bring content moderation expertise internally, TechCrunch highlights.

"Kinzen offers a combination of tools and expertise to help us better understand content on our platform and emerging abuse trends," said Sarah Hoyle, Spotify's head of trust and security.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

WHAT KINZEN DOES

Founded in Dublin in 2017 by Áine Kerr, Mark Little and Paul Watson, Kinzen's mission focused on protecting public conversations from "dangerous misinformation and harmful content," according to its website.

In fact, the company has been partnering with Spotify since 2020, initially focusing on the integrity of election-related content around the world. Since then, Kinzen's mandate has expanded to include the targeting of disinformation, disinformation and hate speech.

WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE

And we come to the beginning of the year when the singer Young asked Spotify to remove all his music from the platform to express dissent against Rogan, the American comedian, author of the podcast The Joe Rogan Experience. After Young, singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell also withdrew her music from Spotify. Rogan was accused of misinforming the pandemic and promoting no vax content.

After the musicians fled, the Swedish company revised its policies on Covid-19 and disinformation in January. This June, Spotify took another step towards better managing the content posted on its platform by creating a "Security Advisory Council". The board's mandate is to help guide Spotify's future decisions on content moderation.

THE SPOTIFY STRATEGY WITH KINZEN

But now with Kinzen integration, Spotify has made the decisive move.

Spotify notes that Kinzen will be particularly valuable as it is capable of analyzing content in hundreds of languages and dialects. Doing so will help the company detect emerging threats in all markets. Kinzen's suite of tools includes those that help platforms plan ahead by receiving alerts on changing narratives and trends that could later become misinformation hazards.

“We have long had a high impact and collaborative partnership with Kinzen and his exceptional team. Now, by working together, we will be able to further improve our ability to detect and address malicious content and, more importantly, in a way that better considers the local context, ”said Dustee Jenkins, Spotify's Global Head of Public Affairs.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/ecco-perche-spotify-ha-comprato-la-societa-tech-kinzen/ on Thu, 06 Oct 2022 05:05:12 +0000.