Streaming Services | Swedish artist Fröken Snusk, suspected of playback manipulation, returned to Spotify

The number of listeners the Swedish artist suspected of manipulation Fröken Snuskin and his producer by Rasmus Gozzi songs have been returned to Spotify.

In December 2023, an unusual fluctuation was observed in the number of listeners of their songs, raising suspicions of manipulation of the number of listeners through fraudulent means. For example, the one published in August 2023 Gynecologist– the number of playbacks of the song increased from 40,000 to 184,000 in the second week of December, but returned to its usual level the next day.

Rasmus Gozzi and Fröken Snusk have denied the manipulation suspicions. Fröken Snuski is scheduled to compete in the second heat of Sweden's Eurovision Song Contest, Melodifestivalen, on Saturday, February 10. of the Swedish public broadcasting company according to SVT suspicions of manipulation have raised demands to exclude Fröken Snuski from the competition.

Swedes according to the media, both Spotify and the Swedish recording producers' association Ifpi Sverige drew attention to the unusual number of playbacks. Neither of them has since said whether fraud has actually occurred in this case.

Spotify's Nordic music manager Johan Seidefors posted in January for Aftonbladetthat Spotify does not comment on individual cases, but told what methods the company can use in cases of manipulation: it can correct the number of plays, not pay compensation for manipulated plays and in some cases remove songs from the service.

Already in January Fröken Snusk announced on his Instagram account, that all songs will return to Spotify on Sunday, February 4th, and that indeed seems to be the case. Fröken Snusk and Rasmus Gozzi announce that 490 songs will be released, but at least on Sunday morning Fröken Snusk's songs were available considerably less, just over a tenth of that.