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YSK: Deezer, the music streaming service, is owned by a company whose Founder and CEO is a Russian Oligarch with connections to the Kremlin and donates to the American Republican party. (feddit.org)
submitted 1 month ago by thesdev@feddit.org to c/PurchaseWithPurpose@lemmy.world
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fjärrinlägg från: https://lemmy.world/post/33642043

The company is Access Industries and the Founder and Owner is Leonard Blavatnik

Along with what's in the title, he is accused of reputation laundering against Ukraine and has been personally sanctioned by Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He was also part of a WhatsApp group involving some of the United States' most powerful business leaders with the stated goals of "changing the narrative" in favour of Israel and "helping win the war" against Gaza.

Everything is in the linked Wikipedia article about him, mostly under the "Controversies and disputes" part.

I switched to Deezer after seeing it recommended as a better Spotify alternative here on Lemmy, but after finding all this I immediately stopped using it. It's as bad as the shit Spotify does and has done IMO. I'm not here to recommend or push an alternative, but if I can give info on what I use now if someone asks.

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[-] eleijeep@piefed.social 1 points 1 month ago

Deezer is publicly traded now, so what is the share distribution? You can probably find this out from the IPO documents which should be public.

[-] erni@europe.pub 4 points 1 month ago

"The company is 41% owned by the Access Industries investment fund since 2016 and 8% by Orange Group. Also, the Saudi Arabian billionaire and House of Saud royal Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud is invested through the Kingdom Holding Company (5.3%) and the Rotana Media Group (5.2%), and the Pinault family through the Artémis Group (4.4%)"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deezer

this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2025
110 points (97.4% liked)

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