Platforms are growing increasingly powerful, raising questions about whether their power might be exercised with bias. While bias is inherently difficult to measure, we identify a context within the music industry that is amenable to bias testing. Our approach requires ex ante platform assessments of commercial promise – such as the rank order in which products are presented – along with information on eventual product success. A platform is biased against a product type if the type attains greater success, conditional on ex ante assessment. Theoretical considerations and voiced industry concerns suggest the possibility of platform biases in favor of major record labels, and industry participants also point to bias against women. Using data on Spotify curators’ rank of songs on New Music Friday playlists in 2017, we find that Spotify’s New Music Friday rankings favor independent-label music, along with some evidence of bias in favor of music by women. Despite challenges that independent-label artists and women face in the music industry, Spotify’s New Music curation appears to favor them.

平台变得越来越强大，引发了人们对其权力是否可能带有偏见的质疑。虽然偏见本质上难以衡量，但我们确定了音乐行业内适合进行偏见测试的环境。我们的方法需要对商业承诺进行事前平台评估——例如展示产品的排名顺序——以及有关最终产品成功的信息。如果产品类型获得更大的成功，平台就会偏向于产品类型，前提是事前评估。理论考虑和行业表达的担忧表明平台可能存在偏向主要唱片公司的偏见，行业参与者也指出对女性的偏见。使用 Spotify 策展人在 2017 年新音乐星期五播放列表中的歌曲排名数据，我们发现 Spotify 的 New Music Friday 排名偏爱独立厂牌音乐，同时也有一些证据表明偏爱女性音乐。尽管独立厂牌艺术家和女性在音乐行业面临挑战，但 Spotify 的新音乐策展似乎对她们有利。