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Massive Attack have become the latest act – and first major-label one – to pull their catalogue from Spotify in protest at founder Daniel Ek investing €600m (£520m) in the military AI company Helsing.

In June, Ek’s venture capital firm Prima Materia led the defence tech firm’s latest funding round. Helsing’s software uses AI technology to analyse sensor and weapons system data from battlefields to inform real-time military decisions. It also makes its own military drone, the HX-2. Ek is also chairman of Helsing.

The band made the announcement at the same time that they signed up to a new initiative, No Music for Genocide, in which a group of more than 400 artists and labels are blocking their music from streaming services in Israel.

In a statement, the band said:

Unconnected to this initiative and in light of the (reported) significant investments by its CEO in a company producing military munition drones and AI technology integrated into fighter aircraft, Massive Attack have made a separate request to our label that our music be removed from the Spotify streaming service in all territories.

In our view, the historic precedent of effective artist action during apartheid South Africa and the apartheid, war crimes and genocide now being committed by the state of Israel renders the No Music for Genocide campaign imperative.

In the separate case of Spotify, the economic burden that has long been placed on artists is now compounded by a moral and ethical burden, whereby the hard-earned money of fans and the creative endeavours of musicians ultimately funds lethal, dystopian technologies.

Enough is more than enough.

Another way is possible.

The Guardian has contacted Spotify for comment.

Helsing said in a statement: “Currently we see misinformation spreading that Helsing’s technology is deployed in war zones other than Ukraine. This is not correct.

“Our technology is deployed to European countries for deterrence and for defence against the Russian aggression in Ukraine only.”

Massive Attack join Australian psych group King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Canadian post-rock group Godspeed You! Black Emperor, the Third Man Records-signed US band Hotline TNT, alternative US group Deerhoof and Manchester band Wu Lyf in removing their music from Spotify as a result of Ek’s investment in Helsing.

Unlike those acts, Massive Attack will not be able to host their music on the widely used alternative Bandcamp, which is only available to acts on independent record labels. After moving to Bandcamp – and making their albums pay-what-you-want, including £0 – King Gizzard’s entire 27-album catalogue took the top 27 spots on the platform.

The No Music for Genocide initiative also includes artists such as MJ Lenderman, Amyl and the Sniffers, Rina Sawayama, Jockstrap, KeiyaA, John Glacier, Erika de Casier, Smerz, Wednesday, Nourished by Time, Mike, Yaeji and Faye Webster. The artists involved either edited their release territories or asked their distributor or label to geo-block their releases.

Massive Attack expanded on their participation in an Instagram post:

In 1991 the scourge of apartheid violence fell from South Africa, aided from a distance by public boycotts, protests, and the withdrawal of work by artists, musicians and actors. Complicity with that state was considered unacceptable. In 2025 the same now applies to the genocidal state of Israel. As of today, there’s a musician’s equivalent of the recently announced @filmworkers4palestine campaign (signed by 4,500 filmmakers, actors, industry workers & institutions) – it can be found @nomusicforgenocide & supports the wider asks of the growing @bds.movement . We’d appeal to all musicians to transfer their sadness, anger and artistic contributions into a coherent, reasonable & vital action to end the unspeakable hell being visited upon the Palestinians hour after hour.

Massive Attack previously formed a syndicate for artists speaking out in support of the Palestinian people alongside Brian Eno, Kneecap and Fontaines DC, to protect musicians from being “threatened into silence or career cancellation” by organisations such as UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), which reported Bob Vylan to police for leading a chant of “death to the IDF” at Glastonbury, as well as reporting the BBC for broadcasting the set.

Of the syndicate, Massive Attack told the Guardian: “This collective action is really about offering some kind of solidarity to those artists who are living day after day in a screen-time genocide, but are worried about using their platforms to express their horror at that because of the level of censorship within their industry or from highly organised external legal bodies, terrifying them and their management teams with aggressive legal actions. The intention is clear and obvious: to silence them.”

The indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show has prompted impassioned calls for a boycott against Disney, ABC’s parent company, and other major media conglomerates that have refused to air Kimmel’s show.

Boycott calls grew after ABC announced it would indefinitely suspend the popular show following complaints from the Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr. Carr’s complaints stem from Kimmel’s recent monologue in which he addressed the killing of the rightwing activist Charlie Kirk by saying: “Many in Maga land are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk.”

Carr, who was appointed by Donald Trump earlier this year, said Kimmel’s comments were “truly sick” and that ABC had violated its “public interest” broadcast obligations. ABC’s suspension of the show also came after Nexstar Media, one of the US’s largest owners of TV stations, said it “strongly object[ed]” to Kimmel’s comments and would pre-empt, or halt, any of the show’s episodes set to air on its stations “for the foreseeable future”.

Meanwhile, the conservative TV conglomerate Sinclair announced it would run a tribute to Kirk during Kimmel’s time slot on Friday. It also called on Kimmel to issue a formal apology and make a personal donation to Kirk’s family and his rightwing political advocacy group, Turning Point USA.

Overnight, calls to boycott ABC and Disney emerged, with Nelini Stamp, organizing director of the pro-labor union political group Working Families Party, sharing a viral boycott resource guide online that says: “Jimmy Kimmel wasn’t suspended because of what he said. He was suspended because the FCC threatened his employer. That’s state-sanctioned censorship and it is a giant red flag … Authoritarianism isn’t coming, it’s already here. Today it’s Jimmy. Tomorrow it’s the rest of us.

Stamp added: “Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group own the largest number of local ABC affiliates. These two companies are currently seeking approval from the FCC for business deals. In other words these media giants have every incentive to bend the knee to authoritarian pressure coming from the FCC and the administration to get their deals across the finish line. We’re done watching this unfold in silence … It’s time we speak in the only language they seem to respect – their money.”

The boyott guide urged the public to write to ABC, Nexstar and Sinclair with the following script: “I object to the cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel Live after pressure from the administration. This is censorship plain and simple and it’s not what American values stand for. We need leaders to protect freedom of speech, not punish it.”

In a statement to the Guardian, grassroots political advocacy group 50501, which shared Stamp’s boycott efforts, said: “The government is using absurd accusations of hate speech to silence comedians who offend the wannabe king.

“Now more than ever, all Americans need to stand up in protest against censorship and for the First Amendment. As such, 50501 is calling on all Americans to boycott Nexstar, Sinclair, and ABC-Disney.”

Boycott calls have also emerged on numerous Reddit threads as well as on X via the hashtag #BoycottDisney.

One user wrote on BlueSky: “Heard from a friend at Disney+ that there are multiple levels of freakout internally, both from internal dissatisfaction, concerns about subscription cancelations, and of course the big one: concern about a boycott spilling over into parks and cruises.”

On Wednesday, the CNN correspondent Brian Stelter wrote on X that he asked Carr if he had any new comments following Kimmel’s show suspension. “He sent me this gif,” Stelter said, alongside a gif from The Office, where two characters, Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute, are shown celebrating with their hands in the air.

The Guardian has contacted ABC, Disney, Nexstar, Sinclair and the FCC for comment.

Reacting to the news of Kimmel’s show suspension, Trump responded gleefully, saying: “Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED. Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done.” He added that Kimmel had “worse ratings than even Colbert, if that’s possible”.

In July, Trump celebrated Paramount’s decision to cancel The Late Show With Stephen Colbert – the US’s highest rated late-night show – after Colbert also mocked Trump. Writing on TruthSocial, Trump said: “I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!”

The suspension of Kimmel’s show has also prompted condemnation from the public and lawmakers, with House Democratic leaders demanding the resignation of Carr.

The free speech advocacy group Pen America, decried ABC’s decision, saying: “This marks a dark new level of capitulation and censorship of speech more redolent of autocracies than democracies.”