LOS ANGELES — On Thursday afternoon, Jan. 24, PragerU’s social media team received an email from Spotify indicating the popular music streaming service would stop running PragerU ads, both now and in the future. The notification provided little additional detail regarding which ads specifically were problematic, nor did it suggest there would be an opportunity for PragerU to alter or amend the ads in question. PragerU has posted the entire email from Spotify here.

News of Spotify’s action has already led hundreds of PragerU supporters to cancel their Spotify memberships, sending emails to the organization’s general inbox with screen grabs of their cancelation emails including the customary “sorry to see you go” language. Other have gone to social media to point out the apparent double standard applied to PragerU by comparing other Spotify ads from organizations like Planned Parenthood.

“We were running 10 different audio ads on Spotify, all of which were very similar and objectively appropriate for any audience of any age,” says PragerU Chief Marketing Officer Craig Strazzeri. “The only visual element was a static image containing PragerU’s logo and our tagline, ‘short videos, big ideas.’ At this point it’s nearly impossible to know what exactly they found problematic or offensive other than we are conservative and our content is effective.” 

PragerU had been running audio ads on Spotify for approximately two weeks before receiving the email ending their engagement. The campaign was designed to reach new communities that may not have been exposed to the organization’s content through other platforms. According to early analytics received from Spotify, over a million users were reached with engagement evenly spread among all musical genres including hip hop, pop, Latin, rock, and country.

“We were excited to explore Spotify as a new alternative ad platform in an effort to reach a new audience, says PragerU CEO Marissa Streit.  “Unfortunately, Spotify is yet another big tech company that doesn’t want people to hear conservative ideas.  We will continue to fight back on this issue and we are grateful for the support that our audience is already showing.”

To listen to one of the ads Spotify has blocked, click here to download.

At the time of this writing, PragerU has been unable to contact Spotify for clarification.

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PragerU, founded by Dennis Prager in 2011, is a not-for-profit online media organization that helps millions understand the values that shaped America and provides millions of people around the world with the intellectual ammunition they need to advocate for limited government, individual responsibility and economic freedom. Since its founding, PragerU videos have received over 1.89 billion views. PragerU is a resource for all who value liberty. It is a threat to all those who do not.

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