Drug Sites Hijacked Spotify’s Search Ranking Through Fake Podcasts
Drug Sites Hijacked Spotify’s Search Ranking Through Fake Podcasts
药品网站通过虚假播客劫持 Spotify 搜索排名
For the past year, Spotify has been quietly purging tens of thousands of podcasts that advertised illegal online pharmacies. A report released Thursday by Senator Maggie Hassan, ranking member of the Joint Economic Committee, faults the company for acting only after news outlets exposed the content and her office spent nearly a year pressing for answers. None of what it removed was sent to law enforcement, the report says. 在过去的一年里，Spotify 一直在悄悄清理数以万计宣传非法在线药店的播客。联合经济委员会资深成员、参议员玛吉·哈桑（Maggie Hassan）周四发布的一份报告指责该公司，称其仅在新闻媒体曝光相关内容且其办公室花费近一年时间施压要求答复后才采取行动。报告指出，Spotify 删除的所有内容均未上报给执法部门。
Spotify reportedly removed more than 57,000 podcast episodes and 3,000 shows, and took enforcement action against 3,500 accounts, all pushing links to illegal online pharmacies advertising opioids, benzodiazepines, and stimulants for sale without a prescription. Nevertheless, the report frames the cleanup as a moderation failure. 据报道，Spotify 删除了超过 57,000 集播客和 3,000 个节目，并对 3,500 个账户采取了执法行动，这些账户均发布了指向非法在线药店的链接，兜售无需处方即可购买的阿片类药物、苯二氮卓类药物和兴奋剂。尽管如此，该报告仍将此次清理行动定性为内容审核的失败。
The report leans on one comparison in particular: Spotify acted against more than 3,500 accounts for drug content in 2025 but fewer than 100 the year before. The committee presents the jump as evidence the company moved only after it came under scrutiny. Spotify offered a different explanation: that its older counts are incomplete because, as it says in the report, it changed the way it tracks removals last year. 该报告特别强调了一个对比：Spotify 在 2025 年因药物内容对 3,500 多个账户采取了行动，而前一年不到 100 个。委员会将这一激增视为该公司仅在受到审查后才采取行动的证据。Spotify 则给出了不同的解释：其早期的统计数据不完整，因为正如报告中所述，该公司去年更改了追踪删除内容的方式。
A handful of the offending podcasts did find an audience. Of the five that drew more than 100 plays, two together pulled around 13,000 streams and walked listeners through buying modafinil, a wakefulness drug, by sending bitcoin. Another, with 125 plays, linked to sites posing as pharmacy marketplaces for cancer and HIV medications. Those were the exceptions, but they pointed to working ways to pay and order. 少数违规播客确实吸引了听众。在播放量超过 100 次的五个播客中，有两个合计获得了约 13,000 次播放，并引导听众通过发送比特币来购买莫达非尼（一种促醒药物）。另一个拥有 125 次播放的播客则链接到了冒充癌症和艾滋病药物药店市场的网站。这些虽然只是例外，但它们指出了可行的支付和订购途径。
The numbers are alarming, and the stakes are real, Hassan says: Counterfeit pills bought online are frequently cut with fentanyl, and teenagers are among the most exposed. 哈桑表示，这些数字令人震惊，且风险真实存在：网上购买的假药经常掺杂芬太尼，而青少年是受影响最严重的群体之一。
“In the age of AI, all online platforms need to deploy sophisticated efforts to continually identify and take down illegal content,” Hassan tells WIRED. “Failure to swiftly detect and remove dangerous content and also report it to law enforcement can lead to harrowing consequences—whether that’s a teenager who buys drugs online that could be laced with deadly fentanyl or a senior who falls for a scam that wipes out their retirement savings.” “在人工智能时代，所有在线平台都需要部署复杂的手段，持续识别并下架非法内容，”哈桑告诉《连线》（WIRED）杂志。“未能迅速检测并删除危险内容，也未能将其报告给执法部门，可能会导致可怕的后果——无论是青少年在网上买到可能掺有致命芬太尼的毒品，还是老年人因诈骗而损失掉养老金。”
Asked about its approach to AI podcasts, Spotify spokesperson Laura Batey says the company “has a long history of working with law enforcement when content violates the law.” She did not say whether Spotify makes proactive referrals to the Drug Enforcement Agency, or how often. Batey said Spotify is still looking into WIRED’s question about whether it tracks clicks on those links. 当被问及对人工智能播客的处理方式时，Spotify 发言人劳拉·贝蒂（Laura Batey）表示，该公司“在内容违法时与执法部门合作有着悠久的历史”。她没有说明 Spotify 是否会主动向缉毒局（DEA）举报，也没有说明举报频率。贝蒂表示，Spotify 仍在调查《连线》关于其是否追踪这些链接点击量的询问。
Spotify told the committee that its practice is to alert authorities only when it identifies a credible threat of serious harm: an imminent risk to someone’s life or safety. The podcasts, which it had classified as a search-optimization scheme rather than evidence of actual drug sales, never met that bar, the company said. Spotify 向委员会表示，其做法是仅在识别出严重伤害的可信威胁（即对某人生命或安全构成迫在眉睫的风险）时才会通知当局。该公司称，这些播客被归类为搜索优化方案，而非实际毒品销售的证据，因此从未达到该门槛。
While Spotify did not say whether it reports illegal drug activity to the DEA, the report says the company’s competitors answer that question directly: Snap regularly makes proactive referrals to the agency, and Meta says it cooperates with law enforcement to combat drug sales. Spotify’s position, according to the report, is that, as a licensed-content streaming service, its obligations differ from those of a social network. 虽然 Spotify 没有说明是否向缉毒局报告非法毒品活动，但报告指出，该公司的竞争对手对此给出了直接回答：Snap 定期向该机构主动举报，Meta 也表示与执法部门合作打击毒品销售。据报告称，Spotify 的立场是，作为一家授权内容流媒体服务商，其义务与社交网络不同。
At least one of the removed podcasts pointed somewhere law enforcement was already looking. A show the committee flagged in July 2025—listed under a string of nonsense characters and titled to advertise a “licensed online vendor”—linked to a site called Opioidstores.com. That domain was later seized by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, working with the DEA, the FDA, and other agencies. Spotify removed the podcast but, by its own account, reported nothing. 至少有一个被删除的播客指向了执法部门已经在调查的目标。委员会在 2025 年 7 月标记的一个节目——列在一串无意义字符下，标题为宣传“持牌在线供应商”——链接到了一个名为 Opioidstores.com 的网站。该域名后来被布鲁克林的联邦检察官在与缉毒局、食品药品监督管理局（FDA）及其他机构的合作下查封。Spotify 删除了该播客，但据其自己承认，并未进行任何上报。
Of the episodes Spotify removed, the company told the committee, 94 percent drew zero plays and 99 percent had fewer than 10. The shows were barely heard, because reaching Spotify’s audience was never the goal, according to the company, which says the actual payload was links buried in episode descriptions and cover art—an effort at exploiting Spotify’s standing with search engines to push illicit pharmacy and scam sites up Google’s rankings. Spotify 告诉委员会，在其删除的剧集中，94% 的播放量为零，99% 的播放量不到 10 次。这些节目几乎无人收听，因为据该公司称，触达 Spotify 的听众从来都不是目标。该公司表示，真正的“载荷”是埋在剧集描述和封面图中的链接——这是一种利用 Spotify 在搜索引擎中的地位，将非法药店和诈骗网站推高至谷歌搜索排名靠前位置的手段。
Play counts, though, only measure whether someone listened to the audio, and by Spotify’s own account, the audio was never the point. What the operators wanted was for listeners to click the links tucked into episode descriptions and cover art. And Spotify doesn’t track those clicks. The company told the committee it monitors link activity only for ads it was paid to run, not for links inside ordinary podcasts. Its numbers can show that almost no one pressed Play but cannot show how many people followed a link to a pharmacy or scam site. 然而，播放次数仅衡量是否有人收听了音频，而据 Spotify 自己承认，音频从来都不是重点。运营者想要的是听众点击隐藏在剧集描述和封面图中的链接。而 Spotify 并不追踪这些点击。该公司告诉委员会，它仅监控其付费广告的链接活动，而不监控普通播客内的链接。其数据可以显示几乎没有人点击播放，但无法显示有多少人通过链接访问了药店或诈骗网站。
The same fake drug series turned up well beyond Spotify. Committee staff found copies on iHeart, Amazon Music, and Podchaser, several stamped with nearly identical 2021 upload dates. That overlap reflects how podcasting works. Shows are published once, and the various apps all pull from that single source. Removing it from one app does nothing to the original or to the copies running everywhere else. 同样的虚假药物系列播客不仅出现在 Spotify 上。委员会工作人员在 iHeart、Amazon Music 和 Podchaser 上也发现了副本，其中几个标注的上传日期几乎相同，均为 2021 年。这种重叠反映了播客的运作方式：节目发布一次，各个应用程序都从同一个源获取内容。从一个应用程序中删除它，对原始文件或其他地方运行的副本毫无影响。
Amazon Music and Podchaser did not immediately respond to requests for comment; iHeartMedia could not be reached. Amazon Music 和 Podchaser 没有立即回应置评请求；iHeartMedia 未能取得联系。
Spotify told the committee it has several systems for catching this content. The company keeps a list of drug names and street slang and uses software to spot when a banned user opens a new account. It also runs new and edited episodes through an AI filter before sending questionable ones to human reviewers. Spotify 告诉委员会，它有多种系统来捕捉此类内容。该公司维护着一份药物名称和街头俚语列表，并使用软件来识别被封禁用户何时开设新账户。它还在将可疑剧集发送给人工审核员之前，通过人工智能过滤器运行新上传和编辑过的剧集。
The company pays an outside firm, LegitScript, to review podcasts, though only once every three months. Content that gets pulled is removed from search immediately, Spotify said. Anything still appearing in search results is there because it hasn’t found it to break the rules. 该公司聘请了一家外部公司 LegitScript 来审核播客，尽管每三个月才进行一次。Spotify 表示，被下架的内容会立即从搜索中删除。任何仍然出现在搜索结果中的内容，是因为它尚未发现其违反规则。
Much of this content is now generated by AI. The report points to services that market 目前，大部分此类内容都是由人工智能生成的。报告指出了那些进行营销的服务……