Joe Rogan himself has apologized for causing Spotify trouble.
Spotify has dominated the tech news cycle this weekend as it continues to deal with the consequences from its choice to endorse Joe Rogan. Neil Young gave the streaming site an ultimatum last week, stating that if it didn’t take down on COVID-19 falsehoods spread by Rogan’s podcast and others, he’d resign. As a result of Spotify’s decision to support Rogan, Joni Mitchell withdrew her music from the platform in solidarity. (Both Mitchell and Young were polio survivors as children, and they are well aware of the dangers of vaccine disinformation.)
- Amazon has dropped the price of Apple’s 2021 cellular iPad Mini to a new all-time low.
- As the UTAG strike enters its fourth week, public universities may be forced to close.
Following that, a number of high-profile personalities, including the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Brené Brown, have expressed their displeasure. Brown announced yesterday that she would take a break from releasing new episodes of her two Spotify-only podcasts “until further notice.” Following that, Spotify’s COVID-19 standards were released, revealing the (very) broad leeway the business gives podcasts on its platform. (As proven by a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Spotify appears to be cool with climate denial.)
To try to address the issue, Spotify has announced that it will add a content advisory to any podcast episodes discussing COVID-19. Rogan himself has released a video statement saying that he felt justified in inviting COVID-deniers onto his show, but was sorry for the trouble he had caused Spotify. He also promised to “balance things out” by booking guests with different opinions in future.
