Spotify Is Riddled With Fake Streams — Or Is It?

The Digital Music News Podcast

After a string of 'fake stream' scandals involving mega-stars like French Montana and G-Eazy, a serious question percolated within the music industry: how real are Spotify's stream counts? Vice went underground and found a shadowy network of 'underground stream farms' that fabricate play counts, raising serious questions about Spotify's numbers. Michael K. Williams, who led Vice's investigation, declared that the "entire industry has been compromised."

But how corrupted are streaming numbers at Spotify -- or Apple Music, Amazon Music, or YouTube? We asked a company that has developed a sophisticated method for verifying stream counts by identifying statistical anomalies. Their CEO offered an entirely different version of what's happening with stream counts on major platforms like Spotify.