Ask HN: How does Spotify select songs for auto generated playlists?
I was recently looking at the "Viral 50 - Ukraine" playlist automatically generated by Spotify. I'm wondering how the algorithm works to generate such a playlist. Because it seems like it's possibly gamed for various reasons.
The current top 3 are:
1. A song by an artist with one song.
2. A remix of a 70s italian song.
3. And the most egregious is a Russian song titled "Yes, I'm Russian" with lyrics that talk about how they don't care about american sanctions.
For reference this is the playlist link. There are however some songs I could see making sense on this playlist but the top 3 are kind of indicative of most of the list. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZEVXbLwLH0YjrtGb?si=63680e0bfd264419
You won't get an answer on how Spotifys algorithm works for the same reason you won't get an answer on how any big-tech firm algorithm works; it's a proparitary software solution that is core to their business.
Can they be gamed? Tricked? Absolutely. Researchers spend a lot of time and resources trying to figure out how these algorithms work, once you're able to make an educated guess you can try manipulating it. If researchers do it, I see no reason (some) state actors wouldn't.