Slate Daily Feed What Next: TBD | The Great Celebrity Spotify Playlist Hack
4 snips
Aug 29, 2025 
Mike Isaac, a New York Times Silicon Valley correspondent, dives into the intriguing world of celebrity playlists exposed by the Panama Playlists. He humorously contrasts the serious nature of the Panama Papers with the quirky revelations of public figures' musical tastes. The discussion highlights the implications of data privacy and the evolving tech landscape. Isaac also examines how Spotify settings might compromise personal privacy, sparking broader concerns about transparency and identity in the age of digital sharing.
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Journalist Finds His Own Listening Exposed
- Mike Isaac got a late-night message linking him to the "Panama Playlists" site that had scraped public Spotify data.
- He found his own listening history there, including a song he played 139 times, which surprised him.
Public Data Can Be Mapped To Real Identities
- The Panama Playlists collected dozensof public figures' Spotify data and matched them to people using forensics.
- Some matches were confirmed while others remained unverified, showing limits of public scraping.
Creator Reveals Himself As Young Engineer
- The site's author initially hid behind a pseudonym "Tim" and later revealed himself as Riley Walls.
- Riley is a 23-year-old engineer known for scraping and compiling public internet data to tell stories.