Spotify Storm: Rogan Apologises, Pledges Caution
New Delhi, Feb 1: Spotify has added a Covid-19 advisory directing listeners to a dedicated corona hub with facts and up-to-date information from scientists, physicians, and health authorities following backlash over Joe Rogan’s podcast. The tipping point came when musicians Neil Young and Joni Mitchell removed their music from the popular music platform as a result of Rogan’s podcast.
Rogan’s podcast which are usually freewheeling conversation between him and his guests, end up sharing misinformation regarding Covid-19. Rogan claimed he was “not an anti-vax person”, but acutioned young people not to get vaccinated. Much of the controversy followed two recent episodes featuring the cardiologist Dr Peter McCullough and immunologist/virologist Dr Robert Malone with both of the men making multiple unsubstantiated claims related to the pandemic in complete contrast to the information provided by the CDC.
Rogan has now said: “I do not know if they’re right. “I don’t know because I’m not a doctor. I’m not a scientist. I’m just a person who sits down and talks to people and has conversations with them. “Do I get things wrong? Absolutely. I get things wrong, but I try to correct them whenever I get something wrong. I try to correct it because I’m interested in telling the truth. I’m interested in finding out what the truth is, and I’m interested in having interesting conversations with people that have differing opinions. “I’m not interested in only talking to people that have one perspective.”
Rogan denied ever trying to spread misinformation, arguing that new facts about Covid-19 were emerging all the time and stressed how he had also had guests on the show with more conventional ideas, including Dr Michael Osterholm, a member of President Joe Biden’s Covid-19 advisory board. According to fact-checking organization Science Feedback, Rogan described his guests as “highly credentialed, very intelligent, very accomplished people, and they have an opinion that is different from the mainstream narrative. I wanted to hear what their opinion is.”
He issued a statement saying: “These podcasts are very strange because they’re just conversations. And oftentimes I have no idea what I’m going to talk about until I sit down and talk to people. “And that’s why some of my ideas are not that prepared or fleshed out because I’m literally having them in real time, but I do my best and they’re just conversations, and I think that’s also the appeal of the show. “It’s one of the things that makes it interesting. So I want to thank Spotify for being so supportive during this time, and I’m very sorry that this is happening to them and that they’re taking so much from it.”
In a nearly 10-minute video uploaded to Instagram, Rogan defended his decision to book the contentious guests, and apologized to Spotify for the backlash Spotify is set to lose billions of dollars (between $2 billion to $4 billion) following the exit of several artists. Rogan told Spotify: “My pledge to you is that I will do my best to try to balance out these more controversial viewpoints with other people’s perspectives, so we can maybe find a better point of view.” He said he had “no hard feelings” towards Young or Mitchell.”I’m not mad at Neil Young, I’m a huge Neil Young fan” noting his admiration for Mitchell’s music.
