The owner of the largest streaming music platform, his Spotifyis faced with a big dilemma: To continue to host in the middle one of the most successful podcasters with millions of listeners and followers even though half the planet accuses him of racist comments and spreading false news or not?
They say that any advertisement is a good advertisement. Even one that starts with negative comments and situations can have beneficial effects. 38-year-old billionaire Daniel Ek despite making an official statement in support of Joe Rogan and his show “The Joe Rogan Experience” has to decide whether one (among others) openly racist, celebrity and anti-vaccine does good on his platform or not.
In a letter to Spotify employees, Ek essentially takes a stand on the hot topic. An issue brought to the fore by Neil Young with his decision to withdraw his music from the platform on the occasion of what Rogan says on the podcast.
“While I strongly condemn what Joe has said and endorse his decision to withdraw podcasts from our platform, they realize that some people want more. “And I want to make one thing clear: I do not think Joe’s silencing is the answer,” Ek wrote. He also confirmed that many of the episodes of the podcast were withdrawn from the platform in early February, mainly those containing inappropriate racist statements (Rogan repeatedly referred to African Americans as “Negroes”) and added: “We need to have clear lines about and act when they are violated, but silencing voices is a slippery slope. “
But who is Joe Rogan who has created such a mess around his name?
From the UFC rings to the board as a stand up comedian and radio producer
American Joe Rogan in addition to podcaster is a former fighter in the Ultimate Fighting Championship -UFC in which he later worked as a presenter, commentator, comedian, actor and former television presenter.
He began his comedy career in August 1988 in Boston, USA. When he moved to Los Angeles in 1994, he signed an exclusive deal with the Disney studio and starred in a number of television series including “Hardball” and “NewsRadio”. In 1997 he started working for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) as a sports commentator and interviewer, with a distinctive style that made him stand out.
In 2000 he released his first comedy show “I’m Gonna Be Dead Someday” but Rogan had not become widely known when until 2001 when until 2006 he was the host of the TV game Fear Factor.
In 2009, he presented for the first time the podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience”, together with comedian Brian Redban. The podcast was one of the first to be successful at a time when podcasts were just making their debut. The episodes of the podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience” have existed since 2013 and on YouTube, having more than 1 billion views. On Spotify, every Rogan show is listened to by about 11 million users.
Rogan has from time to time commented on various social issues through his shows without being afraid to express his opinion freely. For example, he has advocated for gay marriage, women’s equality, global health, and more. So, the recent comments and misinformation about the coronavirus contradict what he seems to have argued earlier and this has caused a great deal of discussion on social media.
Since then it has hosted a number of pop culture personalities, politicians and other disciplines with whom they discuss issues from Metaverse, to the difficulty of quitting smoking, the assassination of Kennedy, the Bible and more. Some of the guests were Elon Musk, Mike Tyson, Kamaru Usman, John Jones and others.
The podcaster also likes to experiment with substances and does not hide it. In September 2018, he made Elon Musk drink a lot of whiskey, before causing him to smoke a marijuana cigarette. “Is it legal?” Musk asked. In California, where the studio was, yes. Wall Street did not seem to pass this freedom as the next day Tesla shares fell 9%.
In 2020, Spotify gave him an exclusive contract, although his shift to a racist, misogynistic, xenophobic and homophobic discourse was evident. Until the coronavirus period arrived.
The open microphone for each “instead”
During the pandemic, Rogan turned on his microphones to all the “anti” people who have thrived in America for many years: anti-woke, anti-vaccine, exiled from other platforms and all sorts of sprayed with extreme right (or not) speech .
This does not mean that he did not take a position himself. Young people, he said last April, do not need to worry about vaccines, as long as they are “in good health, exercising regularly and eating healthy.” His excuse after the outcry was not enough: he is not opposed to vaccination, but he is not himself and no reliable source of medical information “not even for myself”.
In September, he also contracted the coronavirus and revealed that he had taken ivermectin, the horse pesticide that many took, even though the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) discouraged its use by humans. At the close of the year, December 31, he hosted Robert Malone, one of the pioneers in MRNA technology research, and the corresponding vaccines, which he has since been “exiled” by the medical community for his views and has been blocked from Twitter.
For three hours Malone outlined his theories about “potentially dangerous vaccines” and how health authorities “hypnotized public opinion.” It was probably the drop that overflowed the glass. 270 doctors, nurses, educators and scientists sent a letter to Spotify asking it to “immediately establish clear and public rules to reduce misinformation”.
The “Delete Spotify”… movement within Spotify
In the midst of all these reactions, at the end of January 2022, an image appeared saying “Delete Spotify” on the platform itself. It was on the homepage of the alternative rock band of the ’90s “Belly” and could only be seen by those who used the medium from a computer and not from a mobile phone.
Speaking to Variety, the band members put forward other arguments besides hosting opinions like Rogan and his guests: “From the beginning, Spotify’s business model was to underestimate creative work and not pay artists enough while lobbying. -along with other technological giants- for the benefit of the payments of rights, and to the detriment of the artists “.
The band continued: “Going back and using a lot of the money that should be given to artists to give it to a platform of misinformation – a misinformation that might prolong the pandemic and further harm the artists by limiting the options for live appearances – is something that ultimately goes beyond the limits “.
Source: News Beast
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