When Joe Rogan signed his famous, $100 million deal with Spotify, one concern many had was that the beloved podcast host would see his content, much of it far from PC or approved of by the powers that be, censored by the platform.
Fortunately, those fears appear to have been at least mostly unfounded, even in the face of Covid-19 “misinformation” claims. Whereas Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube censor and smack down wrongthink with an iron fist, Spotify has done a good job of resisting the totalitarian impulses of the modern left and letting Rogan speak.
We first saw that when Spotify employees demanded it censor Rogan, or even kick him off the platform, over a conversation he had about the modern transgender situation that some described as “transphobic.” Spotify, taking the path less traveled when it comes to tech companies, refused to do so. It let Rogan keep doing his show as he saw fit.
Now, the demands for censorship coming again, this time from people that insist the podcaster is spreading Covid-19 “misinformation” by allowing doctors and others with non-conventional thoughts to come on his show and explain their theories about what’s going on.
One such person is Neil Young, an aging, hippy musician that issued an ultimatum demanding that Spotify either remove Rogan’s content or his content.
As Rolling Stone reported on the ultimatum, the aging, not particularly well-known rock star said “I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform. They can have [Joe] Rogan or Young. Not both.”
He also said “I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines – potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them. Please act on this immediately today and keep me informed of the time schedule.”
Well, catchy though some of Young’s songs may be, Joe Rogan averages about 11 million listeners per episode, and he releases a number of episodes each and every week.
Does Neil Young’s music get hundreds upon hundreds of million of listeners each month? Probably not. Well, actually, definitely not; Just the News reports that he averages about 6 million monthly listeners. A respectable number, to be sure, but fewer than Rogan gets every day.
So, Spotify made what must have been an easy choice and decided to remove Neil Young’s music rather than Joe Rogan’s hugely popular podcast.
Spotify, for its part, told TechCrunch:
“We want all the world’s music and audio content to be available to Spotify users. With that comes great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom for creators. We have detailed content policies in place and we’ve removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to COVID since the start of the pandemic. We regret Neil’s decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon.”
Recognizing that he’d lose a large chunk of his income over the ultimatum, Neil Young called on others to join him and leave Spotify, saying “I sincerely hope that other artists and record companies will move off the SPOTIFY platform and stop supporting SPOTIFY’s deadly misinformation about COVID.”
By: Gen Z Conservative, editor of GenZConservative.com. Follow me on Parler and Gettr.
This story syndicated with permission from Will – Trending Politics