Spotify removed thousands of podcasts promoting online prescription drug sales, investigation finds | CNN Business

Spotify has removed tens of thousands of phony podcasts promoting illegal online pharmacies, a new investigation has found, after reports from CNN and other news outlets exposed the issue last year. Last May, Spotify said it had removed dozens of podcasts identified by CNN that blatantly promoted online pharmacies purportedly selling drugs such as Adderall and Oxycontin, in some cases without a prescription. Days later, Senator Maggie Hassan launched an investigation into the fake podcasts, which violated Spotify’s rules and threatened to direct users to spammy and potentially illegal sites. The investigation’s findings, published Thursday, raise questions about Spotify’s ability to proactively detect and remove potentially harmful content. Hassan said the company should have acted faster and alerted law enforcement to the content. “As criminals use AI to perpetuate scams and other dangerous actions faster and in larger quantities, all online platforms need to step up, protect their users, and enforce comprehensive strategies to remove illegal content,” Hassan, a New Hampshire Democrat and the ranking member of the Joint Economic Committee, said in a statement CNN ahead o