• by Colin Kirkland , October 13, 2025

Over the past three days, Spotify users have been posting on message boards across Reddit and the music streaming giant’s Community page to express their dismay at receiving advertisements for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recruitment.

“Is Spotify running advertising for ICE or Border patrol recruitment?” a Spotify user asked on the company's Community message board Sunday. “If I see 1 ad for such nonsense, I will be cancelling my Spotify accounts and will encourage all others to do the same.”

Since this post went up, multiple responses have confirmed the sudden appearance of ICE recruitment ads on the streaming service.

“Can confirm. Just heard it,” one reply reads, detailing the advertisement's message: “Fulfill your mission to protect America. Join at Join.Ice.Gov.” The user adds: “cancelling my subscription TONIGHT."

Some users on the Community message board report cancelling their Spotify accounts “immediately,” and some have expressed remorse. “I will miss you Spotify,” one user wrote. “but I cannot stay if this is what you promote.”

While ads only run for non-paying Spotify users, many paying subscribers joined in on the conversation, stating that they are leaving the service for competing streaming platforms like Tidal and Apple Music.

Another person took to Spotify's Community message board over two weeks ago, claiming they were served a “US-based advert for ICE recruitment” in between podcast episodes on the platform. Self-identifying as a citizen of the United Kingdom, they expressed confusion and dismay, writing that “the content of the advert was deeply offensive, portraying immigrants in a criminal light.”

This post received 27 replies, many of which call for a Spotify boycott. Reddit users are also corroborating the matter, with many commenters calling the ads “propaganda” and demanding a boycott.

The consumer-reported ICE ads follow an ongoing boycott movement against Spotify led by recording artists who are pulling their music catalogs from the platform due to low streaming payouts and an investment by the company’s CEO Daniel Ek of $700 million in defense technology firm Helsing, which sells AI-powered weapons and military software.

Advertisements designed to recruit ICE officers have also recently appeared on broadcast television channels across United States cities.

According to a report by PBS, the U.S. federal government has spent millions of dollars on developing 30-second ICE recruitment ad spots that began appearing in mid-September in Albuquerque, Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Denver, El Paso, Houston, New York, Philadelphia, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, Seattle and Washington, D.C.

Mainstream news outlets have yet to report on the sudden influx of ICE recruitment ads on Spotify.