Some Spotify employees are not happy that the audio streaming giant was, until this week, hosting and profiting from a course about “pimping hoes” by Andrew Tate, according to internal Spotify communications viewed by 404 Media.
“Pretty vile that we’re hosting Andrew Tate’s content,” one Spotify employee said in a company Slack channel called #ethics-club, and linked to a Linkedin post that criticized Spotify for hosting the course.
“Happy Women’s History Month, everybody!” another employee said, adding a sweating smiling emoji.
Tate is an infamous manosphere influencer known for promoting misogyny and anti-semitic conspiracy theories and who was previously charged for human trafficking and rape.
Since those Slack messages were posted, Spotify appears to have removed the “pimping hoes” class from its platform. Another course titled “How to get girls FAST AND EASY by Andrew Tate (PHD Course),” is still hosted on Spotify, and has over 70 comments from users calling for its removal.
Before it was removed, the “pimping hoes” course had 276 comments on Spotify that unanimously called on the company to remove it.
“These courses actively teach men how to manipulate, control, and profit from the exploitation of women,” one comment says. “They are in breach of Spotify’s own terms of use, and they are promoting criminal activity.”
The Tate class was available through Spotify for Creators, a special program that’s supposed to make it easier for podcasters to monetize their content. A subscription costs $4.99 a month and according to Spotify Tate would keep 100 percent of the revenue with the exception of processing fees.
Internal Spotify Slack messages viewed by 404 Media show that Spotify employees attempted to report the Tate show via Spotify’s public “report content on Spotify” form, but that some of them encountered technical issues. In testing those claims, 404 Media was able to report the show for “hateful or abusive content” without issue.
Tate’s “Pimping Hoes Degree” course has been available on Spotify since 2023. Its existence on Spotify gained renewed attention this month when multiple people flagged the course on social media, and some trade press outlets covered it too.
“I cancelled my Spotify Premium subscription on Sunday night,” Sam Taylor, a now former Spotify user, said on LinkedIn. “When a company like Spotify gives a home to so-called ‘educational’ content like Andrew Tate’s ‘Pimping Hoes Degree course’—which gives people a playbook for coercive [sic] and control and sexual manipulation—I can’t continue to give that company money each month.”
A Change.org petition called “Demand Spotify Remove Andrew Tate’s Harmful Courses on How to Traffic Women” had more than 55,000 signatures by Wednesday.
In mid-February, the Financial Times reported that the Trump administration had pressed Romanian authorities to lift travel restrictions on the Tate brothers, who are both dual US and UK nationals. At the end of the month, the brothers were allowed to leave Romania and flew on a private jet to the United States. The Romanian justice minister has denied that U.S. pressure led to the decision.
Florida’s attorney general has since said they are investigating the brothers over allegations of human trafficking and sex with a minor.
Spotify did not reply to multiple requests for comment. The first was sent earlier in the week, asking if Tate’s course violated the platform’s terms of service. The second was sent after 404 Media reviewed the internal Spotify communications. The third was sent after Spotify removed the PHD Course.
