![]() ![]() It’s not impossible that Rogan could do something that would cause Spotify to change its stance. The company knew he was a controversial figure before, and he’s so popular that someone else would surely open their wallets for his show if Spotify decided to cut him loose. The Joe Rogan Experience remains an exceptionally popular show, and Spotify made its feelings about Rogan clear when they backed up a dump truck full of cash to have exclusive rights to the show – and they’ve been steadfast in their defense of him since then. It’s hard to imagine Spotify turning its back on Rogan. “To be frank, had we not made some of the choices we did, I am confident that our business wouldn’t be where it is today,” Ek reportedly said. “People are feeling increasingly frustrated that no matter what the company says messaging-wise, or no matter what people’s initiatives are, it all kind of ladders up to, ‘What’s the best for Joe Rogan and Joe Rogan’s audience?’”Įk continued to defend Spotify’s relationship with Rogan today, saying that “exclusivity does not equal endorsement,” (n.b.: paying money to support something is literally endorsing something) and saying that exclusive deals like the one the company cut with Rogan are what’s helping keep the company successful. “Everyone’s a little upset, especially the people whose initiatives directly contradict what’s happening,” a source who asked to remain anonymous told Carman. And earlier today, Carman and The Verge once again published details of an internal Spotify meeting where employees voiced their concerns and where Ek defended his decisions, including Ek insisting that Spotify is simply a platform, not a publisher. This was a response to Spotify employees reportedly being “vocally upset” about Spotify’s deal with Rogan and his view on vaccines. The Verge viewed screenshots from Spotify’s internal Slack that showed the company said it reviewed all episodes of Rogan’s podcast and found that none met the threshold for removal. It’s hard to imagine these moves doing anything to quell the backlash any time soon.Īnd that backlash is now coming from Spotify employees, as well. The content guidelines the company published say nothing about spreading misinformation on the platform, and the COVID-19 content advisory draws a false equivalency between legitimate discussion and incorrect information. Spotify’s response to this controversy has been tepid at best. But The Joe Rogan Experience is part of an increasingly common closed podcast ecosystem - and any company that participates in such a system could have similarly difficult decisions to make about what creators say on those platforms. As Ashley Carman of The Verge notes, Apple delisted Alex Jones's Infowars show from its podcasts app, but people could still find his show and listen to it through RSS. These financial entanglements mean Spotify has to make tough decisions about how much of a voice it wants to give to potentially objectionable creators like Joe Rogan. Instead of simply being a podcast player, Spotify has a host of exclusive deals and owns major podcasting studios including Gimlet Media and The Ringer. ![]() ![]() Of course, it's not clear Spotify sees it that way. Spotify needs to do the same thing, with the added wrinkle that there’s no gray area: By paying artists and podcasters to appear on its platform, the company has a responsibility for the content it puts out. They’re so big that they need to have guidelines around what people post, and accept some degree of responsibility for how they disseminate information. In many ways, what Spotify is grappling with right now is the same thing social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have had to confront over the last five years. Indeed, several of these artists and podcasters chose to remove their content after Spotify publicly shared its content guidelines and announced a plan to add a “content advisory” to any podcast that discusses COVID-19. Rogan and Spotify haven‘t seen a response of this magnitude before, and it shows no signs of abating. Author and researcher Brené Brown has paused her Spotify-exclusive podcasts Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead as well. ![]() Spotify’s Science VS podcast also announced this week that it would only produce episodes that fact-check misinformation spread on the platform until the company made a stronger effort. Several high-profile musicians, including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, pulled their music from Spotify over the platform’s dissemination of misinformation. Over the last few weeks, the backlash to Rogan’s podcast has come from others on the platform. ![]()
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