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In July, Spotify began allowing listeners to 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 first launched, podcasters initially had to review and publish comments. Now, the platform has added a configurable automated moderation tool that can filter out sensitive or inappropriate comments for review and publish the rest.
When set to Standard, Spotify’s new tool will not publish comments that it detects may be sensitive or inappropriate, instead forwarding them to the streamer for review. When set to high, the tool will keep all comments until they are approved, and when set to low, it will automatically publish all comments Except for those that violate Spotify’s rules.
Spotify notes that even if a creator posts comments that are flagged as sensitive or sets the default moderation level to “low,” sensitive comments will remain hidden, and users will need to tap “Show All Comments” to view them.
Creators can also add words, phrases, or emojis to the blocklist to automatically move comments containing them to the moderation queue.
Creators can also turn off comments on any episodes they deem appropriate.
The company said it plans to add support for additional languages to this feature.
“Currently, while we continue to test and 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 that about 44% of posted comments receive a like or response from the show’s creator.
Spotify has been trying to make podcasts more engaging for a while by adding support for Q&As, polls, and audio video files. Earlier this year, the company said that people who use any of these features to interact with podcasts are four times more likely to listen to the show again within 30 days.
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