Spotify never foresaw what the social dynamics of its users would eventually become. Spotify’s number one problem is in the social network context are abusive and problematic followers. These problematic followers use other people’s Spotify information like listening habits, listening activity, and playlists as tools to pressure, bully, stalk and blackmail the people they follow. To be fair with Spotify, nobody else foresaw this eventual issue until it was too late.
As a result of these unruly followers that harass other Spotify users, the Spotify community has for years been clamoring to set in place some sort of privacy feature that prevents bad followers from troubling others.
As early as 2015, Spotify users have been wronged by abusive followers with barely anything to fight back with and take control of their precious privacy. Spotify’s users have been ridiculed and shamed by their followers because of supposed bad public playlists, bad favorite music, and listening activity.
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If Only There Was a Way to Remove these Followers
Abusive followers have remained unchecked and given free rein to do their bullying until recently. Now, Spotify has put in place a way for their users to block abusive followers with a much-awaited, albeit very late, Spotify block feature.
It has been years since abused Spotify users have been waiting for something like this. No one knows why it took too damn long before they have done something about this digital privacy issue. But as they say, it is probably better late than never.
Now, as in just this week in November 2021, Spotify has finally rolled out the much-needed block feature. Everyone on Spotify can now listen to their music in private and have the peace of mind that they can just block a Spotify creep whenever one shows up.
What Happens When You Remove Followers?
What happens to removed followers? Well, they are blown off from the face of your Spotify account permanently. That is until you choose to unblock them. We don’t know why you would do that, but if you think that abusive followers may have a change of heart and having the option to invite them back into your peaceful life is just keeping options open, please don’t. They most likely will just harass you again.
So, what happens when you remove followers? You will have an actual private Spotify account that you will feel more secure about using. And more importantly, abusive followers will not get even a whiff of your Spotify listening activity, or your musical tastes to use against you in real life or other social media platforms.
How to Remove Followers on Spotify: A Step-by-Step Guide
Being abused on Spotify is now a thing of the past, with the power of removing your unwanted followers. You can get more followers and not worry that one of them might do you bad.
On Desktop, do these steps:
1. On Spotify, go to the profile of the offending follower.
2. Click on the more options (…) icon.
3. Select ‘Block’ to block the user.
On a Mobile device, do these steps:
1. On Spotify, Access the profile of the offending follower.
2. Tap on the more options (…) icon.
3. Tap ‘Block’ to block the user.
Followers that you block are also automatically removed from your list of Spotify followers. To unblock an offending Spotify follower, do the same process for desktop or mobile, but instead, select ‘Unblock’ instead of ‘Block’.
How to Make Your Spotify as Private as Possible
Aside from removing or blocking abusive followers, there are a couple of other precautions you can do to make your Spotify account as private as possible.
Before the rollout of the block followers feature, there were a few ways that you could sort of remove followers on your Spotify.
1. Create a temporary private listening session – A private listening session lasts action for 6 hours, wherein no other user will be able to see your listening activity.
2. Make secret playlists – Secret playlists are non-shareable playlists that only you can have access to. These are made by clicking on a drop-down menu beside the play button and activating the secret playlist mode.
3. Make a new anonymous account – Accounts that are not linked to Facebook and other social networks that have only a few trusted followers will not gain any unwanted attention from creepy followers.
The Power is Yours: Privacy is Now Assured on Spotify
Now that you know how to remove followers on Spotify, you can now take back control of the joys of listening to whatever you want to listen to on Spotify. Listening to Spotify will be such a joy to do again.
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