Malone was one of the speakers at a Sunday rally in Washington, D.C., to protest vaccine mandates, where he said of vaccines: “The science is settled. The latest controversy erupted over Rogan’s December interview with Robert Malone, a scientist and widely criticized mRNA vaccine skeptic who has been banned from tweeting after running afoul of Twitter’s COVID-19 misinformation policies. “Four years ago, Spotify could say, ‘Well, you know, we’re just hosting this content.’ Now you can’t make that argument anymore because you’re paying Joe Rogan’s salary.” “If we’re thinking about Spotify five years ago, it was just a hosting service for audio,” said Natascha Chtena, editor in chief of the Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, which studies platforms and misinformation policies. Anthony Fauci, who said Rogan was “incorrect.” the term Black is weird.” In an April episode, he suggested that healthy younger people shouldn’t get vaccinated, drawing a rebuke from top federal U.S. In an episode this month with the polarizing Canadian author Jordan Peterson, Rogan talks about skin color and says “unless you are talking to someone who is like 100% African from the darkest place where they are not wearing any clothes all day. Rogan has previously faced criticism for offensive or controversial comments about transgender people and other subjects. Spotify’s expansion strategy has given it the unusually complex burden of wrestling with both challenges at a time when digital platforms and traditional media companies alike have faced increasing calls to limit the spread of potentially harmful content about COVID-19, elections and other issues.Īnd Rogan, whose brand is built partly on a willingness to interview controversial guests who get banned from other platforms for violating user content rules, manages to combine both challenges into a single program, which Spotify has been reluctant to either censor or publicly defend. Many media companies either have to decide what kind of vision to put forward for professional editorial content - which is often edited before publication - or how to fairly moderate the content that users put on its services. campus with 18 podcast studios as it expands its audio and video programming.īut with growth comes responsibilities.
Company Town Spotify unveils sprawling podcast hub in downtown L.A.