The Joe Rogan Experience was problematic lengthy earlier than Spotify paid a reported $100 million for unique rights to the present in 2020. Rogan’s tendency to let company disseminate hideous and demonstrably false viewpoints has attracted criticism earlier than, however as with many issues, the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed the controversy to new heights in current weeks. On December thirty first, Spotify revealed an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience wherein virologist Dr. Robert Malone likened the idea that vaccines are efficient to “mass formation psychosis.”

Just a few weeks later, 270 docs, nurses, scientists and educators despatched an open letter to Spotify asking the corporate to undertake a transparent misinformation coverage to assist curb the unfold of harmful false claims, like these made in that episode of The Joe Rogan Experience.

Over the previous couple of weeks, the backlash to Rogan’s podcast has come from others on the platform. Several high-profile musicians, together with Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, pulled their music from Spotify over the platform’s dissemination of misinformation. Spotify’s Science VS podcast additionally introduced this week that it will solely produce episodes that fact-check misinformation unfold on the platform till the corporate made a stronger effort. Author and researcher Brené Brown has paused her Spotify-exclusive podcasts Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead as effectively.

Rogan and Spotify haven‘t seen a response of this magnitude earlier than, and it reveals no indicators of abating. Indeed, a number of of those artists and podcasters selected to take away their content material after Spotify publicly shared its content material pointers and introduced a plan so as to add a “content advisory” to any podcast that discusses COVID-19.

In some ways, what Spotify is grappling with proper now is similar factor social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have needed to confront during the last 5 years. They’re so huge that they should have pointers round what individuals put up, and settle for some extent of accountability for the way they disseminate data. Spotify must do the identical factor, with the added wrinkle that there’s no grey space: By paying artists and podcasters to seem on its platform, the corporate has a accountability for the content material it places out. Of course, it is not clear Spotify sees it that method. 

Instead of merely being a podcast participant, Spotify has a number of unique offers and owns main podcasting studios together with Gimlet Media and The Ringer. These monetary entanglements imply Spotify has to make robust selections about how a lot of a voice it desires to present to doubtlessly objectionable creators like Joe Rogan. As Ashley Carman of The Verge notes, Apple delisted Alex Jones’s Infowars present from its podcasts app, however individuals might nonetheless discover his present and hearken to it by way of RSS. But The Joe Rogan Experience is a part of an more and more frequent closed podcast ecosystem — and any firm that participates in such a system might have equally tough selections to make about what creators say on these platforms.

Spotify’s response to this controversy has been tepid at greatest. The content material pointers the corporate revealed say nothing about spreading misinformation on the platform, and the COVID-19 content material advisory attracts a false equivalency between reliable dialogue and incorrect data. It’s arduous to think about these strikes doing something to quell the backlash any time quickly.

And that backlash is now coming from Spotify workers, as effectively. The Verge viewed screenshots from Spotify’s internal Slack that confirmed the corporate mentioned it reviewed all episodes of Rogan’s podcast and located that none met the brink for removing. This was a response to Spotify workers reportedly being “vocally upset” about Spotify’s take care of Rogan and his view on vaccines. And earlier as we speak, Carman and The Verge once again published details of an internal Spotify meeting the place workers voiced their issues and the place Ek defended his selections, together with Ek insisting that Spotify is solely a platform, not a writer.

“Everyone’s a little upset, especially the people whose initiatives directly contradict what’s happening,” a supply who requested to stay nameless informed Carman. “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?’”

Ek continued to defend Spotify’s relationship with Rogan as we speak, saying that “exclusivity does not equal endorsement,” (n.b.: paying cash to assist one thing is actually endorsing one thing) and saying that unique offers just like the one the corporate minimize with Rogan are what’s serving to preserve the corporate profitable. “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 mentioned. 

It’s arduous to think about Spotify turning its again on Rogan. The Joe Rogan Experience stays an exceptionally standard present, and Spotify made its emotions about Rogan clear once they backed up a dump truck full of money to have unique rights to the present – they usually’ve been steadfast of their protection of him since then. The firm knew he was a controversial determine earlier than, and he’s so standard that another person would certainly open their wallets for his present if Spotify determined to chop him unfastened.

It’s not unattainable that Rogan might do one thing that may trigger Spotify to vary its stance. After all, Facebook and Twitter ultimately banned the previous president of the United States after placing up with years of lies and harmful rhetoric. And Twitter just lately banned Georgia consultant Marjorie Taylor Greene for spreading COVID-19 misinformation. But it’ll take much more than Neil Young and Joni Mitchell pulling their music catalogs to make Spotify change course, given its monetary funding in Rogan. If Rogan or a visitor on his present referred to as for an revolt on the US capitol — which may transfer the needle. But wanting that, it appears possible that Spotify will possible watch for this present storm to subside and easily transfer on with the established order.