In short: Spotify replaced mainstream radio, and now it has radio shows, too.
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Spotify execs really split some hairs to ensure that Rogan could stay on the platform (and to shield themselves against lawsuits from other large corporations).
These guidelines seemingly allow podcasters to say the vaccines cause death — just not that they are designed to cause death. Similarly, they allow podcasters to say wearing a mask is ineffective, just not that wearing masks will cause imminent, life-threatening harm.
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Mainstream radio collapsed well before Spotify ever existed.
Their customer service department is apparently crumbling under the volume of cancellations as well.
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Ah, yes. The truly important things in life. 
Meanwhile on Apple Music:
I’ve never been a big fan of Neil Young but I applaud what he’s doing here and hope others follow suit. Streaming services are mostly fungible these days and Spotify is making a huge gamble here. I have a feeling it’s going to really hurt them in the long term.
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In short, it’s going to take more than boomers removing their songs.
Step up to the plate Cardi B.
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Probably true.
I don’t see Neil Young leaving the platform as moving the needle a whole bunch in the long term, but it’s a huge amount of free positive publicity for him (he’s already extremely wealthy and the loss of those minuscule Spotify streaming royalties won’t hurt his bank account), and Spotify is clearly being painted as the villain here.
It’s very possible some more contemporary acts will be inspired by this and take their critical young adult demographic with them to a competitor who will be more than happy to capitalize on this coup.
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LOL. If I get time/inclination I still might go back and check some earlier stuff out if there are still RSS-compliant feeds with free content. Just to see what all the fuss is. I still think the all-time record for most painful podcast episode ever is when Sam Harris interviewed Jordan Peterson for the first time. I think that was before nearly everyone knew just how ridiculous Jordan was, but this was my first intro to the guy. At most, I might have seen Wonkette skewering him, I cannot remember. Anyway…
I mean, besides Jordan’s obvious other problems…his take on what is truth is just…ugh. This is the guy that the alt-right put on a pedestal? Why? He doesn’t even give the appearance of being all that bright. I have no idea how a Peterson fan of any kind could listen to such a discussion about truth, and then walk away still thinking, “that’s my guy!”
Anyway, I listened to that whole show. If I could grind it out listening to that, I could probably bear almost anything. I have no idea how Sam Harris can stand talking to/debating such people. I mean, even if you disagree with someone, usually it goes somewhere. You can still find the episode, it’s called “What is Truth?” and it’s just…legendary. The Metal Machine Music of podcast episodes, maybe.
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We will have to see what the long haul is - is that 2 billion a trend to yet even more loss? Is it permanent, or will it be gone in a month? Apolitical institutions like corporations always go with the money. People praise Nike for “brave” things like corporate wokewashing (Kaepernick), but how “brave” is it, really? They made money as a result. Sure, it might have been a gamble, but I’m sure they discussed the money side of that before even the most superficial of corporate wokewashing commenced.
My guess is? A few more artists follow suit besides Young/Mitchell and Spotify wakes up and smells the money…that they are losing. Then, they do the “brave” thing and do some corporate wokewashing.
People keep expecting apolitical institutions to have a moral center. They will always be disappointed.
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We are likely still in the early stages of this thing, no telling how many could join the boycott by the time all is said and done.
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The PR scramble at Spotify begins as they realise this hurt their stock price. It’s the usual buzzword-filled CYA with a promise to publish the content guidelines that were already leaked. At least (and it is truly the very least they can do) every episode where Rogan JAQs off with his loony-toon guest peddling Covid misinformation will now be linked to a page containing reputable sources and information.
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6 posts were merged into an existing topic: Some organizations to retire non-inclusive tech terms like “master drive” and “slave drive”
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Christ, what a mealy mouth statement with lots of words saying practically nothing. “We aren’t in a position to curate content” … bullshit. By spending millions of dollars to prop up a dangerous anti-vaxxer through an exclusivity agreement they are essentially putting this content on a pedestal. “We will put a disclaimer on certain content” … as if that’ll do anything at all.
And those “secret” rules that they finally published are a wishy washy crock of shit as well. A bunch of “you should avoid this” and “you may face consequences” is exactly the same kind of double standard rules that will come down hardest on the little guys while the whales will face no consequences short of doing something so egregious and damaging that the economics simply don’t make sense anymore a la Twitter.
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What a stupid response: “we are going to label them so their easier to find.”
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“Ancient astronauts stuff” about how aliens built the Pyramids or whatever is attractive to white supremacists, because they can use it to deny the achievements of non-white civilisations.
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Joe Rogan is being completely disingenuous and some in the media are actually buying into this. I just heard Kara Swisher on CNN applaud Rogan’s apology while condemning Spotify.
“The problem I have with the term misinformation, especially today, is that many of the things that we thought of as misinformation in just a short while ago are now accepted as fact,” he added. “Like, for instance, eight months ago, if you said ‘if you get vaccinated, you can still catch COVID and you can still spread COVID,’ you would be removed from social media. They would ban you from certain platforms. Now, that’s accepted as fact. If you said ‘I don’t think cloth masks work’ you would be banned from social media. Now, that’s openly and repeatedly stated on CNN. If you said ‘I think it’s possible that COVID-19 came from a lab’ you’d be banned from many social media platforms. Now, that’s on the cover of Newsweek .”
Rogan uses benign examples of statements made on social media platforms to illustrate his perception of controversial comments from eight months ago. However, he purposely omits his bullshit theories of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine treatments, and how he thinks wearing any masks is overrated.
He’s not contrite; he’s spinning the truth and he’s still an ass.
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