## Spotify Launches Direct Messaging Feature, “Messages”
Spotify is introducing a new direct messaging feature called “Messages” within its request, aiming to enhance music revelation through friend and family recommendations. The company highlights that recommendations from personal connections are a key driver of music discovery and that users have requested a dedicated space for this within the app, as communicated to investors.
The “Messages” functionality will allow users to have individual conversations featuring text and *emojis*, initiated by sharing a song, album, *podcast*, or audiobook. The rollout will begin this week in ”selected markets,” and will be available to both free and *premium* users over the age of 16 using the mobile application.
To encourage adoption, Spotify will suggest contacts based on existing platform interactions, including participation in “jam” sessions, collaborative playlists (“blends”), and shared duo or family plans. Access to these conversations will be through a new icon on the user’s profile screen. Spotify emphasizes that this new feature is intended to *supplement* existing sharing options, and direct sharing to platforms like WhatsApp and Instagram will remain available.
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User Control and Safety
Wiht the addition of direct messaging, Spotify acknowledges the need to address content security and moderation. The company assures users they will “always be in control,” with options to accept or decline contact requests, block other users, and disable the feature entirely within the application settings.
Conversations will be protected with “standard encryption of the industry in transit and at rest,” safeguarding data both during transmission and storage. Spotify plans a “double approach” to moderation: utilizing “proactive detection technology to analyze messages in search of certain illegal and harmful content” alongside human moderators to review user-submitted complaints.
Spotify describes this launch as “just the beginning,” promising further refinement and expansion of the functionality to a wider user base in the coming months.
