Slovakia

In complex systems there are hardly ever singular causes that explain undesired outcomes; in the case of algorithmic bias in music streaming, there is no single bullet that eliminates women from charts or makes Slovak or Estonian language content less valuable than that in English.

Our new study opens the question of the local music promotion within the digital environment. The Slovak Performing and Mechanical Rights Society (SOZA), the State51 music group in the United Kingdom, and the Slovak Arts Council commissioned Reprex to created a feasibility study which provides recommendations for better use of quotas for Slovak radio stations and which also maps the share and promotion of Slovak music within large streaming and media platforms such as Spotify.

We needed a database of Slovak music to show how that national repertoire is seen by media and streaming platforms, how can we give it greater visibility in radio and streaming platforms, and what are the specific problems why certain artists and music is almost invisible.

Regulating black box, private algorithms and data monopolies is only a first step to damage control. Deploying white, transparent algorithms and building collaborative or open data pools can only guarantee fairness in the digital platforms, in recommendations, and generally in the use of AI.

The results of the first Hungarian, Slovak, Croatian and Czech music industry reports are compared with Armenian, Austrian, Bulgarian, …