While you are jamming out to music or watching your favorite show, you might suddenly hear a dystopian voice during an ad break: Are you ready to “join the mission to protect America” from undocumented immigrants who are “predators” and “dangerous illegals”?
This fear-mongering language about immigrants is part of many Immigration and Customs Enforcement recruitment ads being aired on your favorite streaming platforms –– and it’s causing users like Caroline Eddy to boycott what they once used every day.
Eddy, a New Jersey-based graduate student, used to listen to hours of music every day on her Spotify paid subscription. Over the years, she has made 30 playlists for her kids, for a good cry, and even for her wedding day, on the platform.
But once she heard that Spotify was running Immigration and Customs Enforcement recruitment ads referencing undocumented immigrants as “dangerous illegals,” it was an immediate “no-brainer” decision, she said. As a paying subscriber, she doesn’t hear ads, but she still canceled her Spotfiy subscription immediately: “It was just like, ‘Oh, too bad, fuck you guys, I’m out.’”
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Eddy, who is Mexican American, said this nation is run by immigrants, and that this ad feels like “propaganda just catered to people that are not us.”
And she’s not alone. Progressive group Indivisible is calling on people to cancel Spotify subscriptions in particular, saying in a blog post that “Streaming hate is not neutral. It’s a choice.”
In response to questions, Spotify told HuffPost in a statement, “This ad is part of a wider campaign from the U.S. government running across multiple platforms, including television, streaming, and online channels. Users can provide feedback on ads — such as liking or disliking them — to help manage their ad experience.” The company declined to answer questions about how many people have canceled their subscriptions over this ad.
Because ICE recruitment ads with anti-immigrant language can now be found on so many streaming services beyond Spotify, the boycott against these platforms is widespread. That makes it different from the recent successful “cancel Disney” boycott, in which people focused their ire on one company. They canceled their cruises and Disney+ subscriptions to protest the media company’s decision to pull late-night host Jimmy Kimmel off the air.
Could this “Cancel ICE ads” movement be the next “cancel Disney”?
Boycott experts explained the challenges of these ongoing streaming boycotts –– and what it would take for them to be successful.
The Dehumanizing Language Toward Immigrants In These Ads Is Spurring People To Take Action
Although Spotify is being singled out, it is not the only streaming service currently running ICE ads with dehumanizing language toward immigrants.
Hayden Doughty, a New London, Connecticut resident, said she was watching an episode of “Charmed” on Peacock in September when she saw multiple ICE ads asking her to help ICE “catch the worst of the worst” with visuals of people being arrested.
“The language and visuals in the ad felt pretty violent to me, especially because of what we’ve been seeing from ICE raids,” Doughty said. “I want to tune out when I watch TV and the commercial is really jarring.” She has since switched over to watching “Charmed” on Amazon Prime, where she doesn’t see ICE ads.
Consumers should expect to see more of these ICE ads, no matter where they tune in, though. ICE ads are on social media like X, LinkedIn and Meta. Some companies, including HuffPost, use open advertising exchange programs to host ads on their sites or platforms, and ICE recruitment ads have also appeared through those services. These ads are not placed directly with the company but are delivered via third-party networks that distribute campaigns across multiple platforms. Because they can surface under different providers and domains, they can be difficult to preemptively block. (When identified, HuffPost takes immediate steps to remove and block the ICE ads. Other companies have the power to choose whether or not they do this as well.)
The Associated Press reported that the Department of Homeland Security is spending millions on television advertising efforts that reference “dangerous illegals” who “walk free” in efforts to hire 10,000 more deportation officers by the end of the year.
Beyond Spotify, HBO Max, TBS, Pandora, Peacock and Hulu are some of the popular streaming services that have run ICE ads, according to users listening to these ads or confirmed by the companies themselves.
HuffPost reached out to each of these companies about the criticism their ICE recruitment ads have received. Most did not respond. Peacock declined to comment on the record. But even if companies are not speaking out, people are noticing –– and getting mad.
“It's a dumb idea to insert political polarization into that customer experience.”
- Americus Reed, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School
When HBO Max and TBS showed ICE recruitment videos in between an All Elite Wrestling show, Hangman Page, a professional wrestler signed to AEW, had a strong reaction: “Fuck ICE airing commercials during dynamite,” he posted on social media, along with links for feedback to Max and TBS.
T.C. Fontaine, a Las Vegas-based professional wrestling fan, said he was tired of being “force-fed” ICE ads on Max, and when the prices for subscription plans with ads recently increased, it made the decision to quit paying for Max easy.
That’s the type of action these ads can spur, said Americus Reed, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
Because of our divided nation, ICE ads will certainly “irritate half of the people that would be exposed to it,” Reed said. “People are going to these streams to unplug and be entertained and be happy... So it’s a dumb idea to insert political polarization into that customer experience.”
Reed said consumers could become highly annoyed enough to “reach that threshold where they’ll say, ‘I want to do something else or just exit.’”
The timing of these ads is also a factor that can cause people to cancel: “The worst time to try to psychologically interrupt someone is in this moment [while I’m] listening to my spa music on Spotify,” Reed noted.
Although the exact language can differ on each platform, these ICE recruitment ads typically ask listeners to protect their homeland by rounding up undocumented immigrants.
“It makes us look like we’re animals.”
- Marissa Bejarano, a writer and educator of immigrants
“You took an oath to protect and serve, to keep your family, your city, safe,” a narrator declares in one ad targeting local officers. “But in sanctuary cities, you’re ordered to stand down while dangerous illegals walk free.” ICE agents arresting people in cities fly across the screen.
“It makes us look like we’re animals, like we’re savages, like they’re coming to get rid of us, and that just hurts my heart,” said Marissa Bejarano, a writer and educator of immigrants based in the South.
She used to watch “trash TV” on Peacock to get through 30 minutes on the Stairmaster, but canceled her subscription after learning the platform ran ICE recruitment ads.
What These Streaming Boycotts Are Missing Compared To Other Recent Successful Ones
Although the uniquely upsetting emotions this ad causes might help the boycott, the distributed nature of the ads also poses a challenge, experts said.
The successful “cancel Disney” boycott had a focused target and ask: Cancel Disney+ subscriptions to pressure Disney to reverse its decision on suspending late night TV host Jimmy Kimmel. It worked, and Kimmel was reinstated less than a week after the boycott started.
But this streaming boycott goes beyond one service like Spotify. Koen Pauwels, a professor of marketing at Northeastern University, said this wide target is also its weakness, and it is “very unlikely” that boycotters will succeed in causing companies to notice and stop running ICE ads.
“If almost all streaming platforms have such ads, the consumer would have to quit all, which is unrealistic for most,” Pauwels said. “Beyond the immediate loss of revenue, streaming platforms would now also be targeted directly by the president and his administration. So the boycott has to be massive to affect such change.”
Posting hashtags and TikToks about your outrage over ICE ads is not going to change companies’ behavior, Reed said. He said social media can make it appear like this boycott is “a movement, as opposed to a moment.”
Whether or not Spotify or any other platforms will be hurt “by a scalable collective moral outrage-driven response depends on how quickly it can be mobilized and how easy you can make it for people to switch out into something else,” Reed said.
People Who Are Boycotting Stress That It Makes A Difference
“You have to reach a very high psychological aversion threshold before you’re willing to inconvenience yourself. What’s working in favor of these streaming companies is inertia,” Reed said.
But for some, the outrage over what they are hearing and seeing ICE say on the channels they pay for outweighs the inconvenience of starting over with a new platform.
Take it from Eddy, who had years of playlists she curated on Spotify and is still deciding which music streaming service she will use instead. She is currently leaning towards Audiomack, a music streaming platform that has explicitly stated on social media that it will not run ICE ads.
“There is a learning curve, which is frustrating for me, because I used Spotify for a long time, but I think I might end up using that [Audiomack] app,” Eddy said.
Since leaving Spotify, Eddy has also found a like-minded group of people on social media to share music files and information with: “If it got to the point where I could have nothing, if everything was tainted by this [Trump] administration, I know that I have people that would back me up,” she said.
Bejarano, meanwhile, said she has canceled Spotify, Hulu, Peacock, and is ready to cancel more streaming services she learns ICE ads are running on.
For her, the decision is clear. When platforms like Spotify air this kind of ICE ad, “Their message to me is that they don’t have respect for me or my community, and I’m not going to give them a dollar.”