Since its creation in 2006, Spotify has been a major contender in an age-old streaming service debate against Apple Music, Amazon Music, and various other music streaming sites. That being said, the platform has recently faced a fair amount of scrutiny from musicians and fans alike over a dispute involving some of music’s finest.
The whole scuffle started with Neil Young, known as the co-founder of Buffalo Springfield, the “Y” in CSNY, as well as having an esteemed and accoladed solo career. On January 24th, Young made headlines when he asked Spotify to remove either his music or Spotify’s exclusive podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
Young stated, “Have Joe Rogan or Young. Not Both”
Podcaster and controversial public figure Joe Rogan, who has made claims of being socially liberal yet coincidentally remains well received in most right-wing circles, is known for his polarizing opinions and disregard for any boundaries in his “comedy.” In his latest row with the internet’s largely unsuccessful “cancel culture,” Rogan and his podcast came under fire for his episodes regarding COVID-19 vaccination information as well as plugging untested alternative treatments. Many of these episodes of “The Joe Rogan Experience” have already been removed from Spotify for complete disregard for factual information and the spreading of this dangerous misinformation. In his original statement, Young said, “I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines.” Spotify CEO, Daniel Elk, states regarding the backlash, “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.” While some of these episodes are no longer on the platform, Rogan’s words have influenced many of his 11 million listeners and damage has undoubtedly already been done. And while Elk claims to disagree with Rogan’s message and overall influence, the Spotify exec doesn’t seem to think the situation is important enough to lose money over.
This negligence for truth, while technically reprimanded, has not gone unnoticed and many other artists have no desire to be on a platform that allows this promotion of harmful misinformation. In addition to Young, artists like Joni Mitchell, Nils Lofgren, and Roxane Gay have followed suit in removing their content from the platform. Additionally, Young was joined by his old jam buddies David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash in his stand against Spotify.
Joni Mitchell noted, “By allowing the propagation of false and societally harmful assertions, Spotify is enabling its hosted media to damage public trust in scientific research and sow doubt in the credibility of data-driven guidance offered by medical professionals.”
https://jonimitchell.com/library/view.cfm?id=5101
Spotify has since responded a second time by stating that they will be adding warning labels and links to credible information regarding COVID-19 to any content related to it. While this may cover their asses, does it really solve the issue? And while ignorance sells, especially in this day and age, is that really what Spotify wants to be selling?
The bottom line is this: Spotify is marketed to be a music streaming service, if they blow off their artists to prioritize the money made by some idiot with a microphone, they probably need to do some soul searching and figure out if that hill is the one they want to die on.