Joe Rogan Is Sorry, Not Sorry About His Podcast’s Misinformation Problem

Joe Rogan has an necessary message for Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and some other main artist that’s eliminated their music from Spotify’s platform in response to his podcast’s behavior of internet hosting well-known antivaxxers: he’s sorry, however not sorry sufficient to cease doing it.

That’s arguably the largest takeaway from a nearly 10 minute clip Rogan posted on his Instagram final evening, marking the primary time the podcast host has publicly addressed the controversy surrounding his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, in latest weeks. Just to recap, the controversies have included: internet hosting a number of well-known vaccine skeptics on his podcast after which refusing to handle the debunked antivax claims that these skeptics circulated on his present. Spotify, which struck an unique podcasting take care of Rogan back in 2020 wasn’t stepping in, which led to a number of top-tier musicians—and apparently countless Spotify prospects—fleeing the platform en masse.

Rogan’s response, in the meantime, makes the man appear to be he’s shocked—shocked!—that his podcast, which reaches an estimated eleven million listeners per episode—can be taken that critically in any respect.

“These podcasts are very strange because they’re just conversations, and oftentimes I have no idea what I’m going to talk about until I sit down and talk to people,” Rogan mentioned in Sunday’s Instagram clip.

“That’s why some of my ideas are not that prepared or fleshed out—because I’m literally having them in real-time. But I do my best, and they’re just conversations […] It’s a strange responsibility to have this many viewers and listeners. It’s very strange and it’s nothing that I prepared for, and it’s nothing that I ever anticipated.”

What Rogan does over and over all through the clip is point out “conversations.” This definitely isn’t distinctive to Rogan, however of us have used phrases like “we were just having conversations,” or “we were just debating,” as an excuse to air out apparent mistruths, even supposing spreading misinformation is not debate. And what Rogan has been doing is spreading misinformation, plain and easy.

This included latest interviews with figures like Peter McCullough, a heart specialist who used the podcast to air out absolute nonsense like “vaccines killed thousands of people,” and that there was an “intentional” suppression of early remedy plans for COVID-19. Despite the truth that each these (and different) claims McCullough made are blatantly false, Rogan hosted them on his absurdly enormous platform, lending an air of legitimacy to those frankly harmful concepts.

Rogan’s episode with McCullough was flanked by one other with the widely criticized vaccine skeptic Robert Malone, who used the interview as an opportunity to match COVID vaccination efforts to the Nazi get together’s rise to energy, even supposing these two ideas aren’t similar in the slightest. In his meek protection, Rogan famous in his Instagram clip that these docs merely “had an opinion that was different from the mainstream narrative,” and that he “wanted to hear what their opinion is.”

“I don’t know if they’re right, because I’m not a doctor, I’m not a scientist,” Rogan mentioned. “I’m just a person who sits down and talks to people and has conversations with them.” Sure dude.

Despite the truth that these friends had been clearly spewing clearly incorrect statements, Rogan bristled at utilizing the phrase “misinformation” to explain the 2 interviews. He identified that the “problem” he had with the time period within the coronavirus period is that a lot of what we’re listening to from federal officers appears to flip-flop at a frustratingly regular tempo. And whereas sure, the CDC may get its act collectively, the Center’s at all times been fairly constant about a number of key factors. Masks work. Social distancing works. And getting a dang vaccine is at all times a more sensible choice than getting contaminated by a doubtlessly life-threatening virus.

Rogan, for his half, didn’t say that he’d cease having controversial friends on to have “conversations” about these matters, although he did word that he would “try hard” to get these with extra mainstream views on within the following episodes. He was additionally fast to thank Spotify for “being so supportive” throughout the backlash towards his podcast.

The similar day that Rogan put out his fake apology on Instagram, the Swedish audio large—whose shares had tanked in response to a few of its greatest stars leaving—issued one thing of a pretend apology of its personal. The firm famous that these episodes and others coping with potential COVID-19 misinformation may have a new content material advisory that can play beforehand. As of Monday, these advisories nonetheless aren’t on both of the aforementioned Joe Rogan Experience episodes, even supposing the episodes are nonetheless there, and nonetheless being listened to, by numerous adoring followers.