Neil Young’s music has disappeared from Spotify. What happened? The Canadian musician put the streaming platform in front of an aut – aut: “O me, o Joe Rogan: you can’t have both, ”but Spotify hasn’t satisfied him.
Joe Rogan is an American television commentator and comedian, and his (very popular) podcast, «The Joe Rogan Experience», grants a vast space to no vax contents and conspiracy theories about vaccines.
Neil Young accused Spotify of “spreading false information about vaccines, potentially causing the death of those who believe that misinformation is being spread from the platform. ” In another statement, published on his website, the musician called the music streaming giant “the home of Covid, life-threatening disinformation”, adding that it spreads “lies sold for money».
Young also thanked his record label, the Reprise Records, owned by Warner Brothers, for having supported his decision, which cost a lot of money: “60% of my worldwide streaming revenue, in the name of truth.”
Spotify, however, two days after the musician’s letter was published, began removing his discography, claiming to “Regret” Neil Young’s decision and to hope that he will be back on the platform soon. “We want all the music and audio content in the world to be available to Spotify users. From this comes a great responsibility in balance both safety for listeners and freedom for creators“. And again: “We have detailed content policies in place and we have removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to Covid since the beginning of the pandemic”.
But Young isn’t the first person to raise concerns on Rogan’s podcast. Last month, a group of doctors, scientists and healthcare professionals signed an open letter to Spotify, referring to an episode in which Rogan interviewed Dr. Robert Malone, a virologist – already banned by Twitter – who said vaccination would put people who have already had Covid-19 at a higher risk.
According to Wall Street Journal, Spotify, in 2020, would have paid 100 million dollars (about 90 million euros) for the rights to the podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience”. This is the most followed podcasts on Spotify and is reportedly downloaded nearly 200 million times a month (and perhaps that is why the platform is turning a blind eye to its no vax content).
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