A group of doctors, health experts, and scientists have written an open letter to Spotify, asking the music streaming giant to establish a content policy so that hazardous material such as anti-vaccine agenda and COVID-19 misinformation does not spread from popular sources like Joe Rogan’s podcast. Spotify onboarded Rogan in a deal that was reportedly worth over $100 million, but the show hasn’t been without its fair share of controversies.
On an episode of the “The Joe Rogan Experience” that aired on April 23 last year, Rogan commented that if asked, he’d personally advise young people to not get the COVID-19 vaccine. A couple of days later, Rogan tried to clear the air by claiming that he’s not an anti-vaxx person, and only wanted to convey that, if a young person is healthy, they don’t need the vaccine.
More recently, Rogan invited Dr. Robert Malone to the podcast, a virologist who claims to be the inventor of mRNA vaccine science and was recently suspended from Twitter for fanning COVID-19 misinformation. On Rogan’s show, Malone discussed the unfounded “mass formation psychosis theory” to dismiss efforts being done to get more people tested and vaccinated. After clips of the conversation were shared widely on social media, a group of around 270 experts wrote an open letter to Spotify, asking the company to “immediately establish a clear and public policy to moderate misinformation on its platform.”
A Call For A Spotify Misinformation Policy
The group — which consists of doctors, nurses, professors, and science communicators — criticized Spotify over repeated failures to mitigate hazardous content that is being seeded via its platform. With Rogan’s show being one of the biggest podcasts in the world with millions of listeners, the risks are multiplied. The clip was shared widely on social media as well as YouTube, although the latter has since taken the video down, according to The Independent. Signed by experts from fields such as immunology, microbiology, epidemiology, and neuroscience, the letter targeted Rogan’s show for promoting distrust in science and repeated violations in the past.
Back in April 2021 when Rogan previously courted controversy, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek told Bloomberg that the company has a content policy in place, but didn’t say anything about removing content, especially when it comes from a high-profile creator like Rogan. However, having a content policy and a misinformation policy is not the same thing, and Spotify just happens to be missing the latter. “Though Spotify has a responsibility to mitigate the spread of misinformation on its platform, the company presently has no misinformation policy,” the open letter explains. The likes of Twitter and YouTube have drafted well-defined policies around vaccine and COVID-19 misinformation, and content flagged as misleading is routinely removed. Spotify is yet to provide a response, but it will be interesting to see how it handles the situation, especially when the controversy stems from one of its most prized exclusives.
Sources: Spotify Open Letter, The Independent, Bloomberg