Spotify adds auto-moderation tool to help podcasters manage comments | TechCrunch

Spotify in July started letting listeners comment on podcast episodes on the app, and the company is now rolling out a new set of controls to help podcasters manage and moderate comments.

When comments were first launched, podcasters initially had to review comments and publish them. Now, the platform has added a configurable auto-moderation tool that can filter out sensitive or inappropriate comments for review and publish the rest.

When set to the “Standard” level, Spotify’s new tool will not publish comments that it detects as potentially sensitive or inappropriate, and instead redirect them to the podcaster for review. When set to “High,” the tool will hold all comments until they are approved, and on “Low,” it will automatically post all comments except those that violate Spotify’s rules.

Spotify noted that even if a creator publishes comments flagged as sensitive or sets the auto-moderation level to “Low,” sensitive comments will still be hidden, and users will need to tap on “Show all comments” to view them.

Creators can also add words, phrases, or emojis to a blocklist to automatically move comments that include them to the review queue.

Creators can also turn off comments for any episodes they deem fit.

The company said it plans to add support for additional languages for this feature.

“For now, as we continue to test and as we develop our automatic detection systems to support more languages, all non-English comments will need to continue to be reviewed and approved in Spotify for Podcasters, but we plan to expand to more languages soon,” the company said in a blog post.

Spotify said its users have posted 2.5 million comments across 650,000 episodes since it launched the comments feature in July, and about 44% of published comments get a like or a reply from the creator of the show.

Spotify has been trying to make podcasts more engaging for a while now by adding support for Q&As, polls, and video podcasts. Earlier this year, the company said people who use any of these features to engage with podcasts are four times more likely to listen to the show again within 30 days.