Spotify is a digital music streaming service, offering access to millions of songs, podcasts, and audio from artists all over the world. It’s on-demand radio for the streaming era, with the added bonus that over time, it becomes tailored to your listening interests, suggesting music, artists, and topics you might like, while curating playlists based on your listening history. Kids and adults alike love it for its ease of use, quick access to a vast online library of audio, and its high level of customization – but Spotify is also home to some hidden risks that parents need to explore.
What can kids do on Spotify?
With the basic (free) version of Spotify, kids can listen to the full library of music and podcasts, but with breaks for ads, and they’ll only be able to press the “skip” button a few times before it stops them from jumping from song to song. The free version also shuffles playlists, and you can’t listen offline. Why is this important? With kids’ listening in shuffle mode across a huge variety of songs, genres, and artists, it’s difficult for parents to keep track of what they’re listening to, and whether they’ll be served with songs, ads or podcasts where the lyrics or content is inappropriate for their age.
Spotify does have a premium version, where parents may feel more in control: the paid subscription removes ads and skip limits, playlists are no longer shuffled, and kids can listen offline. Premium subscribers in some countries also have access to a range of audiobooks, which aren’t available in the free version.
Spotify: the risks parents need to know
Explicit content
Long gone are the days when you could avoid songs or a whole album by vetoing any purchase with a “Parental advisory: Explicit content” label. Through Spotify, kids have access to a huge library of music with uncensored, graphic lyrics, podcasts discussing mature themes, and sexually inappropriate content. And just like most spaces on the internet where large numbers of users can edit, upload, and interact with content, Spotify contains adult content, which is relatively easy to find or stumble across. Kids can find explicit album art, porn audio, and erotic podcasts across the platform.
Inappropriate content
Beyond music, Spotify is also host to a wide variety of podcasts and audio content, which cover a range of topics – not all of them child-friendly or age-appropriate. Discussions about adult relationships, substance abuse, violence, mental health challenges, and other complex subjects that aren’t appropriate for every age often feature in podcast content.
Algorithmic recommendations
Like most entertainment and social applications these days, Spotify’s recommendation engine is designed to keep you listening – and it’s good at serving you exactly the kind of music and content you’re likely to enjoy. But this same system that understands our likes and dislikes, and serves up positive recommendations such as motivational content, or lifestyle tips, can gradually serve more extreme material.
A child who listens to a podcast touching on conflict or crime might be served darker, more gory content, while – particularly for young boys – listening to content about sports, or fitness can gradually serve up more extreme ideologies, such as “maximizing” their appearance: or “looksmaxxing” as it’s known online.
Social features
Spotify’s social features, like public playlists, collaborative playlists, and messaging, might leave young users open to inappropriate interactions. With people all over the world able to access Spotify, and create custom playlists, these can be channels for adults to contact unsuspecting children. One UK mother reported that a stranger had used Spotify playlists to communicate with her 11-year-old daughter, changing the title and description of the list to encourage her to send explicit photographs by uploading them as the playlist’s featured image.
Direct messaging
In August 2025, Spotify launched a direct messaging feature, allowing users to share music, podcasts, and audiobooks inside the app. In January 2026, this feature expanded to include group chats of up to 10 people. Spotify requires users to accept a message request before starting a conversation, and chats are limited to people users have previously interacted with (for example, through collaborative playlists), meaning in theory strangers can’t contact your child. However, it does provide another channel for contact that parents should be aware of, especially with group chat dynamics that can be problematic for bullying, and make kids feel they’re “missing out” if they’re not involved.
Spotify blocks users from under 16 accessing direct messages, but this relies on children either entering their real date of birth, or going through an age check process that scans your child’s face to provide an age estimation. Both these methods can be skirted, and in the case of age-estimation, are not always accurate – meaning a 15-year-old could be verified as 18+ without parents knowing.
Limited parental controls
Spotify has worked to improve its parental controls, but they come with some important limitations. Through a Premium Family plan, parents can set up a managed account for children under 13, which gives them access to a “music-only” experience with explicit content filters, and control over playback of individual artists or tracks. Video features are disabled, and these accounts have no access to messaging features. In some markets, this is available on the Free tier – check your region to see if managed accounts are available.
If your child is over 13, these filters and restrictions don’t apply. You can adjust settings to filter out explicit content and messaging permissions, but these are simply settings, and your teen can switch them back on.
For younger children, a dedicated experience called Spotify Kids offers a more contained alternative – it’s a separate app with age-appropriate content and stricter controls – but it’s not available worldwide.
Privacy and security
Spotify collects user data, including listening habits, device information, and location data (if permitted), which may raise privacy concerns. Users should familiarize themselves with the platform’s Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, and User Guidelines to ensure they are comfortable with their content.
Linking Spotify to social media accounts, such as Facebook, X, or Instagram, can enable the platforms to share user information reciprocally, including profile details, contact lists, and online habits, creating potential data-sharing risks which could lead to targeted advertising or the exposure of personal information on platforms the user may not have intended.
5 ways to make Spotify safer for kids and teens
Depending on your child’s age, there are different ways you can make Spotify safer for them to enjoy and explore. Across the age groups, it’s generally a good idea – if you can – to choose a premium subscription, managed account, or use Spotify Kids if it’s available in your region. This will allow you to give young kids a more age-appropriate experience, or enforce explicit content filters. However, even if you can’t do this, there are still ways you can make Spotify safer for children and teens.
1. Make custom playlists
An easy way to ensure your child listens to music that you’re happy with is by creating playlists – which can also be turned into a family activity, where each family member curates music lists to their taste. You can add new songs over time, and there’s no limit to the number of playlists you can create. Alternatively, if you don’t have time, or don’t want to create your own, you can explore the huge library of custom playlists and follow them from your child’s account.
2. Follow podcasts and artists
To help shape your child’s algorithm, it’s a good idea to follow podcasts or artists that they enjoy, or that you think provide value. Similarly, you can hide artists by selecting “Don’t play this artist” from their profile, and adjust the algorithm by selecting “Not interested” on recommendations, or “Remove this from my taste profile” on playlists. This will help shape their feed, and give them recommendations that are more likely to align with your values, and their interests.
3. Filter out explicit content
Filtering explicit content is easiest when using a paid subscription like a Family plan, but depending on your region, managed accounts may be available on Spotify’s free service – check your account settings to see what’s available.
If you don’t have a premium account, or have a child over 13, you’ll need to filter content using the settings. On mobile, tap your child’s profile picture, then “Settings and privacy”. Under the “Content and display” section, toggle on or off “Allow explicit content”. On desktop, the process is the same, except under “Settings” you’ll need to find “Explicit content” and toggle off “Allow playback of explicit-rated content”. You may need to keep checking these settings, as kids can also switch it back on.
4. Monitor social sharing
While it’s fun to see what friends and others are listening to, and Spotify’s social features can make listening a more collaborative experience, it makes sense to check in on who your child is connected to and block anyone they don’t know in real life. You can also make playlists private, making it more difficult for their profile to show up in any search results. If your child is 16 or over (or if they’ve entered a date of birth that makes them appear older), Spotify’s messaging feature will also be available to them. You can disable this in their account settings, but they can turn it back on, so it’s important you speak about healthy messaging habits and let them know they can come to you if anything upsets them in any online chat.
5. Set healthy limits
While it’s beneficial for kids to listen to music and audio, there’s a time and a place for everything, and you may not want your child to have access to apps like Spotify at any time – for example, when they’re supposed to be sleeping, or when they need to get up and out of the door for school. Qustodio’s Routines feature allows you to schedule tech-free moments in the day, and block apps like Spotify when you’d prefer your child not to have access.
Music and audio play an important role in helping children to understand how to express themselves, and how they explore the world. Podcasts can entertain, educate, and provide an escape through humor, among many other advantages that access to audio content can provide for young people. Not allowing your child to access audio streaming services means they miss out on different opportunities, so it’s a good idea to be aware of the risks and be open about them with your children, letting you flag problems together before they become serious – meaning the whole family can enjoy music together!
