Spotify fake artists return – but who’s faking plays within user accounts?

Multiple Spotify users have been complaining that their official listening history on the platform appears to have been infiltrated by acts that they don’t simply recognize. The trend was spotted by the BBC, which reported on Friday (January 25) that plays of ‘mystery’ tracks from artists such as Bergenulo Five, Bratte Night, DJ Bruej and Doublin Night were being credited within individual Spotify user accounts –  despite these same users knowing nothing about this music.

After Spotify was alerted to the trend, all of these artists disappeared from its platform entirely.

The BBC offers one possible explanation for how the fake streams of these ‘fake artists’ came to be. Up to 50m Facebook accounts were left exposed due to a cyber-security lapse in September last year, it notes, which potentially enabled a third-party to get hold of ‘access tokens’ linked to Spotify user profiles. The logic here makes sense, because the fake plays reported by the BBC took place from October 2018 onwards.