Spotify Just Removed 70 Episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience—however Not That One

Spotify pulled down a minimum of 70 episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience from its archives on Friday. However, the disappeared episodes don’t have a lot to do with the platform’s ongoing controversy over covid-19 misinformation.

One of the primary to note the episode purge was one in every of Rogan’s former company, Ukrainian-American creator and podcaster Michael Malice, who tweeted out Friday that two of his appearances had been deleted.

Notably, the newest eliminated episode, #1218, is from December 2018.

After listening to in regards to the takedowns, Gizmodo checked a website that recurrently displays Rogan’s episode visibility on Spotify and located that 70 of them had been deleted. We later manually checked and confirmed the location’s evaluation. Clips of among the deleted episodes seem to nonetheless be obtainable on YouTube, although not all of them are.

In case you in some way haven’t heard, Rogan and Spotify have been on the heart of an ever escalating controversy involving accusations that the podcaster has promoted covid-19 misinformation on his present. Rogan claims he’s simply attempting to have conversations with fascinating individuals, however critics have persistently argued that the podcaster helps to unfold harmful misinformation which might result in real-world hurt.

The platform’s refusal to take moderation motion in opposition to Rogan has left the web ablaze in polarized argument and impressed a number of ageing rockstars—together with Neil Young and Joni Mitchell—to tug their music off the streaming platform solely.

Rogan just lately printed a video to Spotify through which he defended his selections and promised to get extra opposing viewpoints, although critics haven’t appeared notably happy with that response.

The episodes that have been pulled don’t seem to have something to do with the continuing controversy. One of the episodes that has precipitated probably the most consternation—that includes the closely criticized vaccine scientist Dr. Robert Malone—stays on Spotify. Malone was banned from Twitter after the platform decided he violated its covid-19 misinformation coverage. YouTube eliminated clips of his look on Rogan’s podcast on related grounds.

This additionally isn’t the primary time that Spotify has completed a purge of Rogan’s materials. Last 12 months it was reported that Spotify had quietly deleted over 40 episodes of Rogan’s present. 

We reached out to Spotify for remark and can replace this story in the event that they reply or when extra info turns into obtainable.