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SPOTIFY: R Kelly was one of the musicians affected by Spotify's "hate conduct" policy.

SPOTIFY HAS rolled back its “hate conduct” policy following a backlash from music fans and artists.

Last month, the music streaming service announced that it would be removing certain artists from its playlists as a result of their conduct.

Among those affected were R Kelly, one of the latest celebrities to be addressed by the #MeToo campaign, rapper XXXTentacion, who has been the subject of domestic abuse allegations and charged with a number of crimes including aggravated battery of a pregnant woman and false imprisonment.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has admitted that the policy was not implemented correctly and has said that there was “too much ambiguity” in the communication of the policy.

He said: "We rolled this out wrong and we could have done a much better job."

In a statement on its website, Spotify said: “Spotify recently shared a new policy around hate content and conduct. And while we believe our intentions were good, the language was too vague, we created confusion and concern, and didn't spend enough time getting input from our own team and key partners before sharing new guidelines.”

Rapper Kendrick Lamar was among those who objected to the policy. He threatened to remove his music from the platform if the policy remained in place.

Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith, CEO of Top Dawg Entertainment, Lamar’s label, told Billboard: “I don’t think it’s right for artists to be censored, especially in our culture. How did they just pick those [artists] out? How come they didn’t pick out any others from any other genres or any other different cultures? There [are] so many other artists that have different things going on, and they could’ve picked anybody. But it seems to me that they’re constantly picking on hip-hop culture.”

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