I guessed this one the wrong way. I thought after Joe Rogan was “outed” as a rampant user of the n-word and a racist douchebag, that now Spotify would have to do something! Something other than issuing word salads and not much else. Spotify did remove more than one hundred of Rogan’s podcasts from their platform, so Rogan is being minorly “deplatformed” for his racism, but again, he still has his show and he still has his $100 million contract. Now Spotify CEO Daniel Ek issued a company-wide memo apologizing for the Rogan mess. Ek also basically says that they’re sticking with Rogan because they’re afraid they’ll be accused of “cancel culture.” Here’s part of Ek’s memo:
There are no words I can say to adequately convey how deeply sorry I am for the way The Joe Rogan Experience controversy continues to impact each of you. Not only are some of Joe Rogan’s comments incredibly hurtful – I want to make clear that they do not represent the values of this company. I know this situation leaves many of you feeling drained, frustrated and unheard.
I think it’s important you’re aware that we’ve had conversations with Joe and his team about some of the content in his show, including his history of using some racially insensitive language. Following these discussions and his own reflections, he chose to remove a number of episodes from Spotify. He also issued his own apology over the weekend.
While I strongly condemn what Joe has said and I agree with his decision to remove past episodes from our platform, I realize some will want more. And I want to make one point very clear – I do not believe that silencing Joe is the answer. We should have clear lines around content and take action when they are crossed, but canceling voices is a slippery slope. Looking at the issue more broadly, it’s critical thinking and open debate that powers real and necessary progress.
Another criticism that I continue to hear from many of you is that it’s not just about The Joe Rogan Experience on Spotify; it comes down to our direct relationship with him. In last week’s Town Hall, I outlined to you that we are not the publisher of JRE. But perception due to our exclusive license implies otherwise. So I’ve been wrestling with how this perception squares with our values.
The last part is interesting and you can go to Deadline to see Ek’s full statement. Despite his wordplay, Spotify does OWN Joe Rogan. They might not technically own The Joe Rogan Experience, but as Ek says, they have the exclusive license and they’re paying Rogan $100 million to be the exclusive platform for his show. The technical law of it is not what matters here, although I’m sure Rogan would sue Spotify if they ever did fire him/deplatform him. From Spotify’s perspective, it’s not just a matter of “perception” – if they deplatform him, Rogan would likely sue. But even worse than that (for Spotify) is that Rogan would take his show somewhere else, and his audience of millions of idiot bros would follow.
As for this: “canceling voices is a slippery slope”… my dude, no one has an intrinsic right to spread Covid misinformation, or be a racist pig or say the n-word. If you argue that everyone has the fundamental right to say racist things or say lies about Covid, I would agree with you. That is your right. But you are not free from consequences. The consequence of Rogan’s history of Covid misinformation, bigotry and racism absolutely needs to be “removal from Spotify.”
Photos courtesy of Getty.
He is also sexist and homophobic and transphobic. Enough is enough.
I love the ease of using Spotify. I was really hoping they would right the ship. It’s clear they’re not. Any suggestions for alternative music streaming platforms would be appreciated. I’m done.
I have never used Spotify so I don’t know which “benefits” does it offer but I can tell you I’m very happy with Apple Music. It has all the things I like. Beside after I paid the apple bundle services I have signed my cousins and my grandma. Four people using Apple Music, Apple TV and Apple Arcade for 230 Mexican peso (around 12 usd). Totally not sponsored by Apple. I just enjoy the service 😅
I’ve read that Quboz (I think that’s it) has superior lossless streaming quality, so if you’re a big audiophile maybe check that. I dumped spotify and will probably just migrate to apple music since I’m fully immersed in the apple ecosystem.
I am also sorry that Spotify has chosen this path; I canceled my Premium service with them last week and am now using Apple Music. In many ways it’s as good or better for music and podcasts. The only things I miss with music are the “suggested songs” for each playlist — which I liked as a way of discovering new music — and the wide variety of playlists available. But it seems that Apple is adding playlists, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they also add more features similar to Spotify’s.
I really like knowing that I’m not sending my subscription money to finance Rogan’s fat contract, particularly when Spotify is choosing to pay musicians so poorly. Apple isn’t much better, but it is somewhat better.
Apple Music is better in a lot of ways but it drives me crazy that you have to use the Podcast App for Podcasts. I like that in Spotify it’s all in one place.
On Apple Music, sometimes if I want to hear a particular song and others like it I’ll search for that song and then filter the results by playlist so you will pull up playlists that have that song in it. Then just pick the playlist you most want to hear and if you like any songs you can download them to your library.
I cancelled Spotify the moment I heard about Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. I trust their political instincts the most. Apple Music is fine and has better sound. As for “We should have clear lines around content and take action when they are crossed, but canceling voices is a slippery slope…” is the kind of comment based on the assumption that so many of our citizens were stolen–literally–from their homes and forced to come here.
How do you work that into your slope? White masculine hegemony must end. It’s killing our world and its people.
You shouldn’t trust anyone’s political instincts lmao. Think for yourself
@Liz,
Maybe their personal political activism aligns with Gubbinal’s; i.e., they think similarly. Why do you have a problem with like-minded people supporting the same cause?
Your comment smacks of divisive rhetoric vis-a-vis your faux superiority, and offers nothing of substance.
My husband has the entire family on a YouTube Music (formerly Google Play) account, and I use that for my music streaming and really love it. The algorithm can be a tad eerie with how well it sometimes predicts what I want to listen to based on what I have listened to before, but it is sometimes brilliant at introducing something new to me, such as Joni Mitchell’s most recent version of the Neil Diamond song “Both Sides Now.” She did a different version earlier in her career (70s or 80s?), but a much more haunting, reflective, jazz-oriented version more recently, and it’s gorgeous.
For podcasts, I just use Apple Podcasts, but for publishers like Maximum Fun (Judge John Hodgman and FANTI are my faves among others), it might be even better to become a member and subscribe directly to their podcasts that way?
Umm, are you aware that YouTube also hosts Rogan pods/vlogs?
I’ve switched to Amazon Music for the time being. Their sound quality is vastly superior! I always had Spotify set to play the highest quality possible, and it was pretty shite in comparison. I’m catching things in AM that I didn’t on Spotify, and it’s like hearing some songs for the first time. I have no plans to return to Spotify, not even for free.
I’ve heard that Tidal actually pays the artists a lot better than Spotify does.
Rogan is 🗑🗑🗑 . All Spotify cares about is 🤑. Sucks! I will not listen or give them my $!
How one he isn’t being Roseanned?!!!!
He said the n word and apes and crap.
Enough.
Because he’s a rich white man that other white men idolize and he makes other rich white men lots of money. That’s it.
THIS! and they are treating him the way they want to be treated when their own ish gets out
So what the CEO is saying is that he secretly agrees with what Joe Rogan is saying anyway ‘and its not that bad but I must pay lip service’ and ‘$$$ is more important than having morals’.
It’s not a true apology if you don’t actually change the way you behave. All you’re sorry for then is just that you faced any consequences. Joe Rogan is definitely this.
Actually I think what Ek is saying is that it’s all about the money. Ending Rogan’s contract would be messy and expensive, and Spotify loves having Rogan’s demographic (primarily younger men) for ad revenue.
This. CEO is a rich white man so while he may or may no agree, ultimately he doesn’t get hurt but the likes of Rogan anyway.
This is about money, pure and simple.
Agreed – it’s definitely all about the $$$$. They’d likely have to pay out his contract, and lose all the subscribers who joined for him (blech).
But that’s what happens when you give a moron like that a huge contract, with no escape clause should he spew racist or dangerous things. I imagine future contracts with other people will be quite different.
I don’t want to hear crap about them worrying about “silencing voices”. They are not the government taking away his free speech. They are a platform, one of many, and anyone they drop could go to another platform.
agreed it’s all about $$$$
plus the slippery slope argument is so dumb because if people are flagging and protesting about a *specific* wildly popular creator who has disseminated misinformation and racist content, it’s not a slippery slope to deplatform them – you can still make choices on a case by case basis *based on negative impact*
it’s like he’s saying “waaah if we deplatform ONE incredibly influential racist conspiracy theorist we might have to deplatform THEM ALL!!!”
What a horde of asswipes. Cancel culture, my god- these snowflakes cannot handle the repercussions of the free market economy they crow about so loudly when it’s of benefit to them. Dumb ass mofos.
Your whole comment made me laugh, especially the “hoard of asswipes” part. They really do complain the most, and the loudest. They excel at projection. Everything they accuse the liberal snowflakes of doing, they do themselves, only worse. You look sideways at some of them and they persecution.
Pleased to be of service!
Omg he’s such a loser!!!!
Where is his suspension for reflection?
I’m disappointed in this, but I’m not canceling my Spotify subscription. Pre-pandemic I probably would have over this, but to be completely honest Spotify and it’s features make me happy and I don’t have the energy to separate myself from things that make me happy at the moment when MANY companies we buy from or support are involved in bad things. I’m not punishing myself over this idiot and I honestly don’t believe artists on the platform should remove themselves either. I’ll donate to Project N95 the price of my Spotify subscription instead. To each their own, I suppose.
I think it’s to the artists’ benefit if they can remove themselves. Roseanne Cash pointed out that it’s not easy for a lot of artists to just take their music down because of issues around ownership, but I think that those who can should. Spotify pays such a paltry amount, it would hardly make a difference to their pocketbook. They might be short 5 bucks at the end of the month.
I agree that it’s impossible to make 100% ethical choices 100% of the time, but if artists and listeners feel strongly about this and are able to switch, they should.
As a professor of critical thinking, I can assure Daniel Ek that slippery slopes are a logical fallacy and not, in fact, an actual thing.
It always burns me up when people say, “That will create a slippery slope” as an excuse. No, no it won’t. They’re not real
agreed! a great article about this:
https://medium.com/iron-ladies/not-all-slopes-are-slippery-7f08a4fbe9b0
“American history is replete with worries about slippery slopes that never actually materialized. For example, an early opponent of women’s suffrage stated that if we gave women the right to vote, this would lead us down a slippery slope to a world where all of our political leaders would become women. Nearly 100 years later, women only make up about 19 percent of Congress, in spite of being 51% of the population.”
“Americans haven’t been stripped of all gun ownership since the assault-rifle ban of the mid-1990s; bigamy isn’t legal despite the Supreme Court’s recent affirmation of gay marriage; scientific research hasn’t screeched to a halt since the Animal Welfare Act was updated nearly a decade ago; and, President Trump’s rhetoric after Charlottesville has not seen monuments to Thomas Jefferson and George Washington fall.”
It’s fundamentalist hand-wringing in disguise. “If we allow x, then we might have to allow y, and then where will we be?!”
One step closer to a safer and more just society? Sounds good to me!
Rapunzel, thank you for your work. If everyone were familiar with logical fallacies, it might actually be a different world.
I don’t use Spotify. I had the free version briefly on my phone and then deleted it pretty quickly before all of this went down. I’m glad I did and now know to never give a cent to Spotify. I know my one little action won’t make a lick of difference in the long run, but at least I can sleep at night.
So there should be boundaries on the content and if lines are crossed, actions will be taken. Okay….. So what actions will be taken? That part was a little vague. Gee, I wonder why.
Spotify is just picking whatever lame reason they can to keep Rogan. Spotify needs Rogan and not the other way around. They’ll do anything to keep him, no matter what Rogan does.
Apparently, an artist on Spotify only gets $1 per 350 listens. It’s insanely unethical and enough reason to drop them.
All of the streaming services pay in literal pennies, it’s crazy. Spotify is one of the lower paying ones too. But they’ll give $100 million to this turd.
The crap pay to artists is a big part of why I still buy music through Apple/Itunes. On a $1 song, the artist gets $0.30-0.70, depending on the rights they hold for it.
As a musical artist I thank you for buying music. Spotify has ruined my industry and they pay us a fraction of a dang penny but give jokers like this racist tons o cash it is brutal and infuriating we mid level artists are stuck having to deal with spotify to get ears on our art .
That is nuts. I’ve switched to Amazon Music. I know Amazon has its own problems, but they are the lesser of two evils, I suppose, and I already had a Prime account.
Some voices need to be cancelled because they cause HARM and DEATH.
I suppose silencing Hitler would have been a slippery slope, too!
I didn’t want to invoke Hitler in my comment, but I feel the same way.
Yes, his voice needs to be cancelled because he knowingly put out health misinformation during a global pandemic. You can’t just spout off anything you want. There are consequences.
I actually cancelled my premium membership about a week before this whole Rogan mess started. I was tired of it just sitting there and spinning and not playing any music most of the time.
Sigh. Yes, okay, silencing voices is a slippery slope, but there are some voices that should unequivocally be silenced, particularly when they have as much influence as Rogan does. If it were just some guy raving on the street, that would be an entirely different matter. But JR is a public figure with a cult-like following off of whom he makes money.
You can make the argument that silencing people only pushes them underground or makes it so that they can’t be challenged or reasoned with. But people like this cannot be reasoned with. They don’t want to have a discussion or “just ask questions.” They have an agenda that they cloak in curiosity, which allows them to evade responsibility when consequences come to call. “Oh, that? I didn’t tell you that you should do that. I was just asking questions!”
Looking at what they’ve managed to accomplish, I don’t think they’d be any more dangerous underground than above. They’re already causing active damage out in the open.
I don’t think of it as “canceling” someone.
Neil Young and Joni Mitchell used their free will to stop associating with a company that makes money off of lies that are killing people. The fact that Rogan is also a racist dbag isn’t surprising.
They are free to take a stand against Rogan the way that Spotify is free to make money as bottom feeders.
The myth of white superiority and the antivax myth seem to overlap.
So Spotify is saying voices shouldn’t be silenced, no matter how high the death toll. How about voices that were never allowed to be heard? If you always prioritize white males voices with $$$ contracts, you are silencing others. This guy would’ve given Hitler a juicy contract.