Spotify has been eradicating Joe Rogan Experience (JRE) episodes since Friday, and as of this writing, the service has pulled down a complete of 113. When Gizmodo observed that a number of the podcast’s episodes may not be discovered, solely 70 had disappeared from the platform. Now, based mostly on the website devoted to monitoring which of the present’s episodes aren’t accessible on the service, a further 40 had been eliminated. However, the episodes aren’t linked with the COVID-19 controversy surrounding the present and the service proper now.

Several artists have exited Spotify not too long ago due to Rogan’s COVID-19-related episodes. An open letter addressed to the host from docs and scientists identified that he had made a number of deceptive claims in regards to the virus up to now and promoted the usage of ivermectin to deal with it. They take essentially the most challenge with one particular episode particularly: Episode #1757 with visitor Dr. Robert Malone, who claimed that individuals solely consider COVID-19 vaccines are efficient resulting from “mass formation psychosis.” That episode remains to be accessible. 

Spotify would not appear to be deleting episodes so as, although the latest one within the bunch is #1458 with actor Chris D’Elia as visitor. It’s additionally unclear what insurance policies the episodes broke to warrant being deleted. Spotify head of worldwide communications Dustee Jenkins reportedly informed staff on Slack earlier than {that a} workforce reviewed a number of controversial JRE episodes and located that they did not meet the brink for removing. Jenkins additionally stated that what Spotify hasn’t achieved is share its insurance policies externally, in accordance with a report by The Verge, which additionally posted a replica of the service’s fairly slender COVID-19 pointers. 

The firm’s CEO admitted that its content material coverage ought to’ve been public prior to now when he reported Spotify’s earnings for the fourth quarter of 2021. As for Rogan, he apologized for the backlash and stated he’ll do his greatest “best to try to balance out these more controversial viewpoints.”