Neil Young has constantly been a musician who stands by his principals throughout his career. And now, he’s doing so to take a stand against Spotify and the spread of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. The streaming platform—which Young had a run-in with back in 2019, when he wanted his music taken off due to the sound quality—hosts a space for podcasts like The Joe Rogan Experience, and Young does not want his music to be part of something that helps spread the kind of information that Rogan is pushing on his show.
According to Rolling Stone, Young posted a since-deleted letter about his involvement with Spotify and how he wanted his team to take his music off the platform if Spotify did not do something about The Joe Rogan Experience. Joe Rogan’s popular podcast (for whatever reason) is filled with dangerous misinformation about COVID-19, as well as being a source for conspiracy theories about the vaccine. The fact that Spotify has not done anything about this is frightening and—for someone like me, who uses Spotify frequently—has me wondering if my money would be more beneficial on another music platform.
“I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines – potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them,” Young wrote. “Please act on this immediately today and keep me informed of the time schedule.” He addressed the letter to his management and a Warner executive.
“I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform,” he continued. “They can have [Joe] Rogan or Young. Not both.”
I’d pick Neil Young
It’s time for Spotify to actually do something about Joe Rogan. Scientists have signed an open letter about the podcast and the baseless misinformation that The Joe Rogan Experience is spreading about COVID and the vaccine:
We are a coalition of scientists, medical professionals, professors, and science communicators spanning a wide range of fields such as microbiology, immunology, epidemiology, and neuroscience and we are calling on Spotify to take action against the mass-misinformation events which continue to occur on its platform. With an estimated 11 million listeners per episode, JRE, which is hosted exclusively on Spotify, is the world’s largest podcast and has tremendous influence. Spotify has a responsibility to mitigate the spread of misinformation on its platform, though the company presently has no misinformation policy.
Musicians like Young need to step up and stop letting Spotify share their music if that’s what it takes for the platform to do something about Joe Rogan. Because, sad as it is, me getting rid of my Spotify Premium account isn’t going to do much—not even if 100 or 1,000 of us did it in protest—but public figures calling it out, taking their music from Spotify? That sends a clear message, and I hope that Spotify will listen.
(image: Matt Kincaid/Getty Images)
Want more stories like this? Become a subscriber and support the site!
—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—x
