Spotify Unsurprisingly Chooses Joe Rogan Over Neil Young After Ultimatum, Eliciting Wide Range Of Reactions On Social Media
Spotify will no longer serve as a hosting platform to Canadian folk singer Neil Young after Young threatened to pull his music from the service if it continued to provide a platform to Joe Rogan. Spotify, unsurprisingly, went with the podcaster whose episodes draw 11 million listeners each.
Young recently published an open letter criticizing Spotify for hosting Rogan, whom Young has accused of spreading misinformation regarding COVID-19, a common criticism of the television host turned podcaster.
"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," Young wrote in the now-deleted letter. "They can have Young or Rogan. Not both."
"We want all the world’s music and audio content to be available to Spotify users … We regret Neil’s decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon," a Spotify spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter in response to Young removing his music. Young's decision is estimated to lose him 60 percent of his streaming revenue.
Young's protest of Rogan's presence on Spotify comes shortly after a group of doctors petitioned Spotify to remove Rogan for similar reasons. That too went largely unheard.
Spotify ostensibly choosing Rogan over Young is unsurprising, considering that not even Neil Young's catalog of classics could compete with the numbers Rogan puts up with every podcast episode. The story led to a wide range of reactions on social media, as Rogan fans crowed that he "won" by remaining on the platform while those in Young's camp applauded the singer for taking a principled stand in an issue he knew he'd likely "lose."
Seems like Neil Young challenged @joerogan to a fight, entered the ring and then knocked himself out. Strange.
— Douglas Murray (@DouglasKMurray) January 27, 2022
Pretty cool that Neil Young took a strong stand for truth and public health regarding Spotify.Pretty sad he is the only one.#ProfitOverPrinciple
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) January 27, 2022
It remains to be seen if Young's actions will inspire other artists to follow in his footsteps. The story has led to increased calls from fans to get artists to join Young's protest and while Spotify can certainly suffer the loss of one older rock star, things will get trickier if, say, Taylor Swift joined his cause.
Who else thinks it would be AMAZING for Taylor Swift to punish Spotify by DITCHING them for choosing Joe Rogan's Covid lies over Neil Young's music? 🖐️RT so @taylorswift13 hears you!
— CALL TO ACTIVISM (@CalltoActivism) January 27, 2022
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biber
Young thinks that Montezuma was a Saint.
Guys a fool.
King Crimson
People die because they believe Joe's anti-vaxx nonsense. If you believe nobody should ever be deplatformed then you certainly have the right to your viewpoint and I can even say I see where you're coming from, but on the same token I don't think saying Spotify shouldn't be hosting harmful crackpot conspiracy theories for profit is an unreasonable stance to take either. I absolutely promise you that at the end of the day Spotify does not care about freedom of speech, only what makes them the most money, and if the likes of Taylor Swift or BTS were to join the boycott Spotify would throw Rogan under the bus faster than you can blink.
hexkeybushing
Eh, let natural selection take its place. Freedom of speech is bigger than a bunch of idiots taking horse dewormer.
KZN02
Unfortunately there's the issue of these particular people endangering others before they die.
hexkeybushing
You can use that as a justification to censor anything. It's a slippery slope.
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originalusernamemaybe
As someone who used to listen to Rogan once in a while, even I can tell you the dude's dumber than a rock sometimes. It's sad to compare the episode of him inviting the paleontologist on who rips the anti-evolution video to shreds to him repeatedly inviting a bunch of scam artist schizo doctors on so they can just re-affirm his schizo takes on the virus.
I know he's always been a bit of a conspiracy bugger, but it really feels like this virus pushed him off the deep end. At least before he said he had walked away from thinking the moon landing was faked.
originalusernamemaybe
Also, Mark Towhey trying to take a swing seems ironic when I can't even remember the last time someone even thought of the guy.
Molemanninethousand
I'd been waiting for this to be reported on here.
What Neil Young did was cancel culture bullying in an effort to deplatform someone, and no one should be attacking Spotify for refusing to concede to it; any inconvenience caused by content removal in this situation is entirely Young's fault and his alone.
I urge my fellow citizens to join me in aggressively correcting the currently trending posts attacking Spotify. Cancel culture, deplatforming and bullying have no place ANYWHERE.