What is botting? Spotify reportedly slashes 235M streams from Kendrick Lamar's 'Luther' after fraud crackdown

Spotify streams are undoubtedly important for artists and users. From generating revenue to boosting visibility, discovering music and social sharing, Spotify streams play a big role.

But what happens when bots or automated programs inflate these streaming numbers? Well, it leads to botting, which leads to misleading industry metrics, distorts recommendations and charts, and makes discovering good and quality music hard.

It has been known that Spotify reportedly removed 235 million fake streams from Kendrick Lamar's song Luther as part of a crackdown on fraudulent streaming. This is done so that only genuine and legitimate plays are counted.

What is Botting and why did Spotify reportedly cut 235M streams from Luther?

Botting is when bots, fake or automated accounts, repeatedly play a song to artificially increase the streaming count of the song. This then makes the song look more popular and more played than it really is. This can then lead to a boost in rankings and earnings of the artists in an unfair manner.

Luther by Kendrick Lamar and SZA was the third single from Lamar's sixth studio album, GNX, and came out in November 2024. The song grew in popularity and debuted at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 in December 2024.

After Kendrick's performance with SZA on Luther at the Super Bowl halftime performance in February 2025, the song's popularity surged. It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in March 2025 and achieved 45.2 million streams on various music charts.

It is reported that Spotify removed the fake stream from Luther, causing the number of streams to drop from 500M to 282M after Kendrick Lamar and SZA's Super Bowl performance. Spotify's fraud detection team was cracking down on fake plays created by bots, and the song was swept in the crackdown.

Bots and fake plays are a real problem in the music industry. They create fake streams and hurt artists by taking credit away from the genuine ones, and also making it hard for their talent to get recognized.

They also manipulate playlists and charts by boosting artificially played songs over organic ones. As for fans and users, the use of bots for fake streams takes away their trust in streaming platforms. Overall, it affects credibility and fairness in the music industry.