this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
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I noticed these accounts are following a lot of ppl on Spotify including me nd it doesn’t seem like I’m the only one from looking on social media. Does anyone have an answer to this? Bots maybe, ppl spam following?

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 11 months ago

Most likely bots for either data analysis or playlist generation.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 11 months ago (1 children)

... you can follow people on Spotify?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (3 children)

What does it do? Do you like... see what they're playing? You listen along or something?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Not a lot. Yes you can see what they are playing and they use it to make recommendations for you.

I think the primary motivator for Spotify is just data scraping. Everybody wants to know your circle of friends in order to advertise better towards you.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I don’t know if it’s still a feature but I used to get phone notifications every time a friend put a song on.

I don’t recommend this.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

But I remember we did it. "Okay, Brian, the record's five. The record's five... Okay ready? Go!"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

For me, I follow several artists and it gives updates on when they uploaded a new album etc etc And I follow my siblings and could see what they're listening to, live, if I activated the sidebar but I'm just here to listen to music

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

That first part works without following personal accounts too. I don't follow anyone but I get notified when the bands I listen to release new albums. Besides that, I use the release radar playlist.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Yep, you can see what song they're playing if you follow each other. Not sure if it does anything else

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I didn't even know people could follow me on Spotify. These two were the only ones.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago
[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago

You can follow people on Spotify?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

My question with all this is why hasn't everyone switched this off in the settings from the first moment they made an account?

It's no wonder we've become a commodity to the services we use, people just allow it to happen.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago

Switched what off? I have my settings about as private as I can do, yet one of those accounts had followed me without me knowing. I blocked them now but I'm not sure what setting you're referring to, in order to prevent some random bot from following you on Spotify?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

Literally noticed this last night on my Spotify

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

Could possibly be OF bots. You reddit users, remember the bots that would follow you every week or so and had to disable following?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

One of them is following me, but with a bunch of extra spaces after the exclamation point.

I don't usually check my followers, but I happened to be in there a couple days ago. The only person following me then was my wife, so this bot/spam is relatively new.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Wtf me too - the Lucas one plus all the spaces. I never even really use Spotify. Creepy.

Edit they are literally my only follower aside from one single friend I know irl.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Wow, thanks. They were following me too, and I had no idea. Blocked.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

You just lost your biggest fan.... Probably.... Not

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Wouldn't it mean they have 98k followers? Not that they follow 98k users? Bad UI?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

It doesn't show how many they follow, but it's probably in the millions

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

They're

a. Fascinated with your content and commentary

b. Bots

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

I have set the list of people following me and the ones i follow on private now. This seems to be the only useful thing they could scrape. Why would i care if they can see what music i listen to? It's not like they can see my personal info and link that or is it?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Thanks, blocked.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Oh no, not Lucas!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

That’s not really what the word “followers” means.