R. Kelly's Music No Longer Promoted On Spotify Playlists

Music by R. Kelly will no longer be featured on playlists created by the streaming music service Spotify. Songs by the embattled R&B singer will still be available on the platform, but Spotify will no longer "actively promote" them, the company told Billboard magazine Thursday.

The service removed the tracks Thursday from its algorithmic recommendations and the playlists it owns and operates — such as Discover Weekly and New Music Friday — as part of its new policy concerning hate content and hateful conduct.

"We don’t censor content because of an artist’s or creator’s behavior, but we want our editorial decisions — what we choose to program — to reflect our values," Spotify said in a statement to the music indutry trade publication. "When an artist or creator does something that is especially harmful or hateful, it may affect the ways we work with or support that artist or creator."

The move by Spotify comes as the public outcry against the Chicago native has grown recently admist continued sexual misconduct allegations that have surrounded the singer for years. Kelly was scratched from the bill of a May 5 concert at the University of Illinois at Chicago after a petition by students and staff called for the show to be canceled. And Time's Up, the celebrity campaign designed to end workplace sexual harassment, joined the #MuteKelly movement in speaking out against Kelly.

RELATED: R. Kelly Will Keep Peforming Despite New Sex Misconduct Claims

The singer also faced new allegations, which first appeared in a Buzzfeed article published May 4. In that report, a woman accused the singer for the first time of engaging in "a mentally and physically abusive relationship" with her during a four-year span in the late 1990s. Another woman alleged that Kelly recrcuited and brainwashed her for a "cult" he led, according to Buzzfeed.

Last year, a Buzzfeed article written by former Chicago Sun-Times writer Jim DeRogatis accused Kelly of being a "puppet master" and holding at least six women against their will in an abusive and controlling cult-like setting.

RELATED: R. Kelly Scratched From UIC Concert After Open Letter

Kelly has faced a slew of accusations of sexual impropriety with women and underage girls, stretching as far back as the mid-1990s when he was secretly married to the late singer Aaliyah in 1994 when she was 15 (documents claimed she was 18, and the marriage was annulled in 1995). He was acquitted in a 2008 child pornography case involving a video that allegedly showed him having sex with a 14-year-old girl. The alleged victim in that case, however, refused to testify.

Kelly has publicly denied the allegations against him over the years, and he has never been convicted of a crime connected with them. His label, RCA Records, also has kept the singer as part of its lineup.

More via Billboard

R. Kelly performs during The Buffet Tour at Allstate Arena on May 7, 2016, in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Daniel Boczarski | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images)