Spotify has marked occupied Crimea as part of the Russian Federation in the list of countries where it operates. As AlexGoogole, who was the first to notice Spotify’s new policy, noted on Twitter, the dataset for this map is available at developer.spotify.
- The map is displayed in the Spotify for Artists section, where artists can see a world map of Top Countries with highlighted countries and cities where their tracks are being listened to the most.
- In 2021, users already noticed that Crimea is marked as the territory of the occupying state. However, as we can see, there have been no significant changes in the policy of the service.
- Of course, Spotify can claim that Crimea is currently not controlled by Ukraine, and the service itself does not work there (and Spotify is indeed turned off in occupied Crimea). However, in general, the service should not change the borders of the states. Crimea is a part of Ukraine, which is now illegally occupied by an aggressor state.