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Did Spotify try to sabotage BTS' track 'Butter'? ARMY accuse site of filtering streams: 'This is insulting'

'InvestigateSpotify' trends as fans claim the music streaming service was filtering out BTS's new hit track 'Butter' by a large percentage

Spotify may have had too much off 'Butter'. BTS fans on Monday, May 24, claimed that the music streaming service was filtering out their new hit track 'Butter' by a large percentage, during a time when the song broke records. With 20.9 million unfiltered global streams and 11.042 million filtered global streams on its first day, the band's latest track, 'Butter,' has officially become the most-streamed song in Spotify history.

The anthemic, disco-infused 'Butter' placed ahead of Justin Bieber and Ed Sheeran's 'I Don't Care,' which had previously held the platform's debut record (10.977 million). 'Butter' came in second on the overall Spotify global list, behind Olivia Rodrigo's /Good 4 U,' which is ranked by total filtered global streams. The superstar septet's hit English-language single 'Dynamite' also took home the award for top-selling song on May 23 at the 2021 Billboard Music Awards. The K-pop boy band is riding high on their success at the BBMAs where they also won top duo/group, top social artist and top song sales artist this year. 

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'#InvestigateSpotify'

ARMY were up in arms against Spotify for what they feel is unfair treatment towards the Korean boy band. "We need a transparency, why other songs are filtered only a few percent while bts butter filters 47%, which is unreasonable! Give us an explanation! #InvestigateSpotify," said a fan on Twitter. "They are still thanking them and Spotify won't still clarify why there was such a massive delay for 3-days. Why Butter instrumental streams weren't filtered with the same percentage. We are the same people streaming both songs. #InvestigateSpotify," said another.

"We're probably the only fandom out there who KNOWS how charts work. If we're saying there's some big issue with the daily stream counts of butter, then it's because we're sure our streams are getting cut despite us streaming properly and very humanly #InvestigateSpotify," a third chipped in.

'We have systems in place'

One Twitter user mailed Spotify to demand an explanation regarding the streaming issue. Their response read: "The only info we can share for this that we have systems in place to make sure that all streams are legitimate. We can't share the exact info on how streams are counted in order to prevent manipulation. Diving deep into the analytics of this is something we can't do right now as we do not have the appropriate resources or functionality for it."

They added: "Second, if you think that there is something to improve with regard to streaming, you can consider adding it to our ideas board. Others can then vote on it or add to the conversation to show their support". It said that once the 'idea' gets 100 votes, it's "reviewed and passed onto the relevant team here at Spotify to potentially implement."

A Twitter user responded to their email, saying, "So this is Spotify's response to our concerns??? They say they have a system in place but in the same sentence they say they don't have resources to dive deep into analytics?? How tf they don't have enough resources to give some transparency to thr users??"

'Suspicious actions'

"There’s suspicious actions going on behind the scenes for BTS. There should be no reason why our streams are highly filtered compared to other artist. To dictate that the streams aren’t done correctly by your standards there needs to be clarity in the process. #investigatespotify" a Twitter user said. "No lets apply pressure, i dont care we not just letting yall play the tannies like this #InvestigateSpotify'," said another. A third shared a comparison of Olivia Rodrigo's song and BTS's 'Butter', saying "Compare the likes, comments and retweets on both tweets. just saying. #InvestigateSpotify".

Another livid fan wrote: "Not only we are paying for a subscription but we also spend time researching, curating, promoting, streaming, etc etc using that platform for what …having close to 50% of our efforts erased like they didn’t happened ?! This is insulting. #InvestigateSpotify." Another slammed the streaming site and accused them of being rigged: "The whole system is rigged and this respo of a mail shows just how much they don't take our requests/demands seriously. Time to #InvestigateSpotify."