The Panama Playlists platform caught the attention of The Verge. The service shows the Spotify music preferences of celebrities, including politicians, billionaires, journalists, and media personalities. No hacking was involved; it's all thanks to the Spotify basic privacy settings.
As The Verge authors noted, "No hacking was required" to compile the music listening lists, so there is no question of information leakage. By default, all Spotify accounts and playlists are public; Panama Playlists uses Spotify's standard features.
After registering, every Spotify user becomes a public member of the platform's music community, and their nickname, name, and created playlists become publicly available. This allows any subscriber to find out what other users are listening to and discover people with similar tastes. This data can be hidden in the account settings, though not everyone is aware of this feature.
According to the site's creator, he started searching for celebrity profiles in the summer of 2024. The pages were fairly easy to find because many users registered with their real names, the author of Panama Playlists noted.
The celebrities whose music was declassified included:
The list includes playlist excerpts, the songs that have been listened to the most recently, and other information about celebrities' musical tastes. Sam Altman, for example, added songs by Missy Elliott and David Guetta to his "My Shazam Tracks" playlist, and JD Vance saved songs by the Backstreet Boys and Justin Bieber for his "Making Dinner" list.
Five people mentioned in Panama Playlists confirmed the data's authenticity to The Verge. It is not specified who exactly is being referred to.
