Spotify has removed about 500,000 streams from Malcolm Todd’s hit song “Earrings” days after the song topped the platform’s daily U.S. chart for the first time, as its surge has been tied to manipulation based around bets on the prediction market Kalshi.
Spotify has asked both Kalshi and Polymarket to remove its logos from their websites, a source at the company confirms to The Hollywood Reporter, further underlining that the streaming service has never had a partnership with either company.
“All streaming services face ever-changing stream manipulation,” the company said in a statement. “Spotify has best in class detection and mitigation practices for manipulated streams, and we don’t pay out associated royalties.”
As of this story’s publication, there’s no suggestion Todd or his team was affiliated with the streaming manipulation. Todd is one of the industry’s fastest-rising acts, and “Earrings” has been floating within the top 5 of Spotify’s daily U.S. chart for weeks, which helped the song in being a ripe target for manipulation from bettors. On Sunday, the song was sitting at Number Four on Spotify’s daily chart, and by Monday, the song hit Number One. The Financial Times reported that the daily jump represented a 70 percent climb. “Earrings” has stuck at Number 3 on Spotify’s chart for the past two days.
