Neil Young’s music is being removed from Spotify at his request. The Canadian singer is protesting against the well-known podcaster Joe Rogan who spreads disinformation about corona vaccines on Spotify.
Spotify says it will comply with Young’s request. The 76-year-old artist had made the request in an open letter that has since been taken offline to his management and Spotify. He wrote this in response to Joe Rogan’s podcast in which virologist Robert Malone is interviewed. Malone was previously criticized for spreading incorrect information about corona vaccines.
Young worried that the podcast “will cause death to those who believe the vaccine misinformation in his podcast”.
The Joe Rogan Experience, which can be heard exclusively on Spotify, is the largest podcast in the world with an estimated 11 million listeners per episode. In April last year, Rogan called on healthy, young people not to get vaccinated. Recently, doctors asked Spotify to introduce stricter rules about disinformation in podcasts on the platform.
A Spotify spokesperson told The Washington Post that since the start of the corona pandemic, the company has removed more than 20,000 podcast episodes due to incorrect information about the corona virus. “We regret Neil’s decision to remove his music from Spotify but hope to welcome him back soon.” The company says it balances “between safety for the listeners and freedom for the makers”.
