Apple Music Fights Stream Manipulation

Apple Music has sent out a statement reaffirming that it remains committed to creating a fair and level playing field for artists, labels, and distributors.

This starts with the platform taking a proactive stance against stream manipulation, which includes any method of artificially increasing play counts.

Since 2022, Apple Music has implemented proprietary technology that can detect a variety of attack patterns in near real time.

This enables the platform to remove manipulated plays from its charts before they are published, deliver more accurate reporting, and pay royalties for legitimate plays more quickly.

While Apple Music takes stream manipulation very seriously, it is equally committed to a fair process, so any suspected stream manipulation is always reviewed by a human.