>> Rogan, on the other hand, has confirmed that Spotify removed certain shows as a condition of their $100 million agreement with him. “There were a few episodes they didn’t want on their platform, and I was like ‘okay, I don’t care’,” Rogan shared in a recent interview with guest Fahim Anwar.
Wait, you left off the next sentence, which is very important:
> Whether Rogan understood that several dozen shows were being removed — and may still be getting removed — is also unclear.
42 of his shows have been removed. Even out of 1631 shows, that seems like more than a few. For $100 million he may not care, but for general listeners its a little unnerving that Spotify would be doing this. I'm a grown adult, I can decide what I want to listen to - why are they getting in the way? One of the main of appeals of his program is that he's having interesting conversations with interesting people. He's willing to talk to people with wildly different view points. When Spotify's editors start removing shows they don't like, they also remove part of the appeal of the show. If they find so much of the show unpalatable, why did they make the deal in the first place?
> I'm a grown adult, I can decide what I want to listen to
I'm also a grown adult. I can stop paying money to those that host content with Alex Jones (and indirectly basically pay Alex Jones). Not sure I'm representative or part of a larger group than those that want to pay Spotify to hear Alex Jones. Hard to say.
> If they find so much of the show unpalatable, why did they make the deal in the first place?
Completely agree. That said, this is 2% of the content. There is some fraction of the content that makes sense to cut out. It could be zero or one episode, or 2% or half of them. But there is a point where the trouble they get into on some level is just larger than the gain. And I think they just played it safe here.
Also, when other outlets (Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, whatever) ban something or someone, it becomes even less comfortable to keep them on. So it's pretty understandable I think.
> I can stop paying money to those that host content with Alex Jones (and indirectly basically pay Alex Jones)
If you won’t use a service that lets you make custom playlists just because they also serve stuff that you don’t like to other people, and others do that, we’re going to only have terrible content.
Will you not shop at a bookstore that sells Alex Jones books?
Will you not ride on a bus that allows Alex Jones?
If people expect this level of micromanagement of content platforms then we’re doomed to only have content so boring that no one complains about it.
Shows how protocols are more important than platforms.
I think there is a small but important difference when Spotify enters the kind of agreement they did with JRE, effectively becoming his publisher. I see them as more responsible for his content than e.g the lyrics of any song in their catalog.
> Will you not shop at a bookstore that sells Alex Jones books?
It depends. I’m not going to judge a store by having a large selection of books including things I disagree with. But if the store has a huge display of Jones books on a big table in the center? An Alex Jones book signing is taking place in the store? Yeah I’m probably going elsewhere.
The risk here I think is that people like Alex Jones are included in what we call “the political spectrum”. He’s not part of it. Booting him isn’t a political stance. He’s not some voice of right wing politics or even extreme right or “alt right”.
Spotify isn’t promoting Alex Jones with a big table in the center. It’s just part of the catalog.
My concern with your reasoning, and if enough people think similarly to you, is that people don’t like lots of people.
So if people skip a bookstore because they have a JK Rowling signing, they lost customers. And if people skip for a Ben Shapiro signing. And if they skip for a Hemingway signing (raised for the dead through necromancy just for a signing). Etc etc
Bookstores like money so rationally they’ll stop having signings from people who could alienate customers.
I like having lots of choices for books and worry that eventually there won’t be stores that carry the books I want to read. So I tolerate the availability of lots of stuff because that leads to books I like being available.
Spotify being responsible for lyrics is a bad thing. I remember in the 80s and 90s when Congress tried to pressure music labels to censor lyrics on albums. That sucked. Not just because it was Congress but because it made it harder for artists to express their ideas. Companies like Walmart would only carry censored versions or not carry albums at all. That sucked.
People were butthurt about curse words and devil references back then. Being butthurt about gay frogs and Sandy hook stupid conspiracy theories is today’s version, replacing alt right for satanists and cop killers.
> Spotify isn’t promoting Alex Jones with a big table in the center. It’s just part of the catalog.
I think this collaboration goes a bit further than their regular catalog but ok I agree there is a difficult line to draw here
> My concern with your reasoning, and if enough people think similarly to you, is that people don’t like lots of people.
I think that’s unavoidable that people object to a tiny bit of content so much that they reject a whole company based on it. And it’s also unavoidable that a company would adjust their catalog.
> So if people skip a bookstore because they have a JK Rowling signing, they lost customers.
Indeed. I’m sure there are people who are offended by JKR who would boycott a store that invites her.
> And if people skip for a Ben Shapiro signing. And if they skip for a Hemingway signing (raised for the dead through necromancy just for a signing). Etc etc
Bookstores like money so rationally they’ll stop having signings from people who could alienate customers.
Of course. But I’m guessing book signings also drive customers. So the sensible thing commercially is to invite everyone but the alienating ones. Thus creating a set of non-offensive book signings that drive more business than they alienate. I don’t really see the alternative to this setup? Is it forcing book stores to carry books? Banning boycotts by customers? What?
It’s one thing to say “I don’t like this it’s a worrying trend” and another thing entirely to argue the alternative. I can’t see one! (I’m not worried half as much by tech giant censorship as I am about the effect of spread of the content like Jones’ though obviously which is why I’m not concerned about this)
> I like having lots of choices for books and worry that eventually there won’t be stores that carry the books I want to read. So I tolerate the availability of lots of stuff because that leads to books I like being available.
I too like having lots of choices for content. I’m however more than ready to sacrifice a bit of content to remove the platform for some other content so that even people who like it aren’t reached by it. I don’t see a big problem with arbitrarily having someone like Spotify being allowed to decide what falls into the category that should be marginalized.
> Spotify being responsible for lyrics is a bad thing. I remember in the 80s and 90s when Congress tried to pressure music labels to censor lyrics on albums. That sucked. Not just because it was Congress but because it made it harder for artists to express their ideas. Companies like Walmart would only carry censored versions or not carry albums at all. That sucked.
People were butthurt about curse words and devil references back then. Being butthurt about gay frogs and Sandy hook stupid conspiracy theories is today’s version, replacing alt right for satanists and cop killers.
Oh I don’t think government should make any laws here. That’s censorship. That’s positively dystopian. But the same works in reverse - should Spotify be forced (by who?) to promote something? I just don’t see why they can’t be free to associate with whatever content they want? Of course there are limits to speech also for book stores (there are a few countries that have extreme free speech protections without many restrictions, such as the US, but even there no one is forced to say or promote anything.)
That I hold them morally responsible for their platform doesn’t mean I think they should be legally responsible or that there should be censorship laws. Free speech is important in the negative, possibly more so. Being able to not promote something is important.
Note that the government never passed any laws to censor music, the industry did it themselves. I guess it sucked less that Walmart and the music labels censored rather than government, but still sucked and was a negative for society.
I think the issue is that there’s no single moral authority and if I expect companies to meet my moral standards then maybe one day they meet someone else’s and that will suck. I’d rather companies not try to match what I exactly have and stick to some more objective level like what’s legal/illegal. That’s still subjective but less likely to change.
> should Spotify be forced
Of course not, but I’m suggesting that Spotify not try to micromanage content by removing specific content from artists for arbitrary reasons.
I’m not talking about legal responsibility, I’m taking about them not being jerks and positively contributing to society. I think it’s a net negative for society when Spotify tries to remove stuff like Alex Jones. Or if they were to remove explicit lyrics and curse words.
I’d rather have a protocol that doesn’t differentiate and just lets me choose.
I remember AOL before the web was widespread. It sucked and they literally blocked curse words from their pages. The web was better because it let users choose. Stuff was still taken down when criminal, but in general, I didn’t have to worry whether AOL “promoted content on their platform.”
Spotify is like the legal version of Napster, but Napster was better because it didn’t try to limit or promote content. I liked that it just connected people together and let me discover music. Any lists or promotion was a layer applied on top of Napster.
I think the concept of promoting is also something I don’t want. I don’t want Spotify promoting specific content.
Comically, stuff like this moves me closer to piracy as it just gives a better user experience.
Outlets always censor themselves and always did. Where to draw the line is obviously up to each outlet. A record store might be able to sell the rap songs about killing cops because they are confident that they can be seen as offering a wide selection and not merely promoting violence.
A record store that only sold that kind of music should rightly be questioned about their motives.
Radio stations are more careful about music selection than record stores, because they are seen as choosing their music making it an expression of their opinion and not their customers. They play it next to messages from sponsors who don't want to be associated with everything and so on. Spotify is obviously closer to record store than radio station, but they do have commercial messages.
(A note for younger readers, a "record store" was a kind of brick and mortar shop where songs were sold engraved onto physical artifacts).
But (and this I think is key): Even record stores have always entirely stayed away from some material. Not just the material that is illegal, but also material that is simply offensive or objectionable. They put Parental Advisory stickers on rap albums, but no main street record stores carried nazi music, for example, even though there was never a shortage of it, and it was never outlawed in many countries. If a band was known as a nazi music band, they weren't showing up on record store shelves with their non-nazi album either. That is - they were boycotted as artists, not merely some objectionable content. I'd put Alex Jones (but not many more of JRE guests) in the "Nazi band" bucket. The ones that record stores didn't have on shelves because customers, owners, employees etc wouldn't stand for it.
My point is: this isn't some "woke" phenomenon of cancel culture. It's the way it's always been.
We've banned this account for using HN for ideological flamewar. Would you please not create accounts to do that with? It's off topic, regardless of which ideology you're flaming.
He often stated that nothing will change and no censorship would take place because of the move to spotify.
For many he was one of the last credible places that would give a place to more extreme voices, even if he might not agree. For years he actively advocated free speech and integrity. Commercially it might be part of the deal, but it's understandable many of his listeners feel like he sold out.
Well most adults at a certain age start to realize that not everyone needs to get heard especially if they incite hate like Alex Jones and quackery like some of the medical guests. The agreement with spotify allows that and JR is $100 million richer and has already stated he doesn't care. I'm sure there's a limit but a rate of far less than 5% is probably just fine with him.
> latest glacial shift in the accretion of content control by tech platforms
It's weird that folks are pointing to a phenomena that's been going on for generations as if it is something novel. There have always been winners and losers in who controls the message. While tech companies seem to be aggregating control over some of the message, it's not like corporate America hasn't had control for a long, long time.
Whether it was print, radio, television, cinema, blogs, podcasts, music, or some other media, there's a centralization tendency. We've had breakout periods of democratization along the way, and today I think we're more democratized than we were historically. I'd wager that diverse views are more available today than they were in, say, the 80s.
That may be true, but we're also witnessing one of those periods of consolidation of control right now. We could resign ourselves to history, or we could try to do something about it
The thing that makes me less worried is that we're probably at one of the most open periods in history. Don't like Spotify? You've got about a million other options. Rogan freely chose to accept some limits in exchange for a truckload of cash. He was already doing quite well without Spotify, from what I understand.
I think the framing that he was somehow unable to succeed without accepting censorship is a little off the mark. He made what appears to be a deliberate choice to limit his speech to make more money. Is that a failure? I dunno. It seems like part of freedom of speech should include the freedom to make the decision to stop talking about some things in exchange for cash.
I'm not that worried about Spotify and 40 odd episodes from the Joe Rogan catalog, but it does fit into a larger narrative. I am somewhat concerned that a hand-full of companies can effectively remove someone from the public discourse. Nobody was too upset when Alex Jones got deplatformed, but there is something a little unnerving about the fact that Twitter was allowed to basically kill certain news stories leading up to the election.
The current state of social media and online discourse is causing some serious problems, but I am not so convinced we are going about fixing it in the right way.
> I am somewhat concerned that a hand-full of companies can effectively remove someone from the public discourse.
Large companies are least able to remove someone from public discourse today than at any other time in the past. The internet is wide open for people to shout into, although it requires work and money to host content. But it’s still far cheaper and easier than its ever been to reach basically anyone around the world.
Yes, but again my point is not that it's unprecedented, it's that it's happening now and we might not want it. We are currently writing the rules for how public discourse should work online, and the current approach seems to be "let the market decide". In an environment with massive consolidation, and zero anti-trust enforcement, this may not lead to solutions we would all consider ideal.
You can play semantics, but Twitter did suppress mentions of certain stories on their platform, effectively preventing millions of people from finding out about them.
> hand-full of companies can effectively remove someone from the public discourse.
How do you today compares to historical American freedom of discourse? For example, I look at things like the House Committee on Un-American Activities, where stating pro-socialist/pro-communist views might get someone fired or imprisoned in the 40s-50s. [1] Or the 'Comics Code' of the 60s-00s, where comics publishers agreed to self-censor. [2]
Or the Hay's Code from motion pictures in the 20s-60s, where things like 'Ridicule of the Clergy' were strictly forbidden? (The Supreme Court even deciding that Freedom of Speech did not apply to motion pictures in 1915.) [3]
Or the Parents Music Resource Center who applied the 'Parental Advisory' sticker to music? [4]
You could be murdered or beaten for being pro-union in the 1900s-1910s.
I bring out these examples not to try and add some whataboutism, but rather to try and connect the Spotify/Tech company case to a broader historical context. Yes, these things are bad, and it may also be bad that we're seeing that consolidation today. It's important to be educated about historical precedents, about who had the authority and who was silenced, about which groups held power of which others, and about how we should holistically look at the problem of limiting public discourse.
Far too often I see people narrowly focus on the now, focus on specific recent events and say, "This is an unprecedented shut down of discourse." (And to be clear, this comment is not aimed at you, skohan, but more broadly.) Or, "This is not who we are as a nation!". When in fact, looking through the historical record, we've absolutely been disallowing certain discourse in pretty much every decade for at least the last century.
It may be that it's a different group this time, it may feel novel to folks because they are young and haven't experienced it firsthand, it may feel different because the underlying technologies are different, but fundamentally there is a throughline of shutting down discussions when 'the powers that be' dislike it, and we should be, imo, discussion that broader trend as much as the moment now.
This is a much better, less snarky version of my point elsewhere in the thread.
I do think that tech control of discourse is an important thing to watch. I don't yet believe that it's impossible for people with extreme views to find a host; I am right now looking at a Google Podcasts page hosting an unquestionably white supremacist, Holocaust-denying podcast. When I was younger, you had to go find yourself a dingy mimeographed snail mail catalog of books to get a copy of Ragnar Redbeard's book. It's way easier these days.
But yes. Even if you think that the danger of conspiracy theories is such that it warrants restraints on free speech, it is also true that you should be extremely concerned with how those restraints are determined and enforced.
That said, if you're not looking at trends over decades, you are likely to overreact to the short term.
> I am right now looking at a Google Podcasts page hosting an unquestionably white supremacist, Holocaust-denying podcast. When I was younger, you had to go find yourself a dingy mimeographed snail mail catalog of books to get a copy of Ragnar Redbeard's book. It's way easier these days.
I think a huge factor that separates the current state of media from the pre-web-2.0 era is the rise in algorithmic content feeds. It's not just the fact that Google and Facebook allow extremist content on their platforms, it's the fact that they actively promote it to millions of consumers. Those looking to radicalize can find ways to game the algorithms and get their content put in front of massive numbers of users, often with the endorsement of a friend or family member.
I think this is a problem, but I think the current solution is also not a good one. These same organizations which in some ways created the problem have proposed that the solution should be enforcing unilateral control over which speech should and should not exist on their platforms. And as I have said in other threads, this is especially relevant now because the ability to exist on these 4-5 platforms essentially does amount to existing in public life during the pandemic.
I am not attributing malice to these organizations, but I do think we should work towards defining some rules of the road for online discourse, and that these rules should be defined by the public rather than by unaccountable teams inside corporations.
Since we're talking about the past, in the past centuries we defined a legal framework around libel and slander. We also had laws in the 20th century (which have been substantially weakened) which prevented one entity from owning too high a percentage of the media outlets in a single market. I think it's time for us as a society to think long and hard about what rules should be put in place to make online discourse safer and healthier. I am not saying I know what those rules should be, but I don't think it's a responsibility we should just hand to the organizations which have had the most success in the market.
Eh? Rogan is a podcaster. He is one of very few with a publisher/distributor; the vast majority are independent. 30 years ago (apart from pirate radio, I suppose) there was nothing like podcasts at all. Media has never been less centralised than today.
It can simultaneously be the case that media is radically less centralized than it was 20 years ago, and that it is significantly more centralized than it was 20 months ago.
To make an analogy, the average life expectancy has increased massively since the iron age. That does not mean we should not be worried if we observe a decrease in average life expectancy year over year.
I mean, one podcaster has effectively taken a network contract (in the traditional media sense); as with virtually all such contracts it is restrictive. Nothing has changed for the million or so podcasters who have not sighted network contracts.
Meanwhile, podcasts generally continue to become dramatically more popular, thus taking more and more media consumption time away from the large networks.
Honestly, most of them probably haven't. Network is almost 50 years old now.
"All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say: 'I'm a human being, god-dammit! My life has value!'" is as relevant in 2021 as it was the 1970s, apparently.
This. Content producers have more freedom now than at any point in history. Previously you had to find a radio/tv station to publish your show. Now you can record it and broadcast it on YouTube or any podcast platform. (Repeat for "newspaper=>blog,twitter,substack", etc.)
The story here is that Rogan took his show off YouTube and onto Spotify as part of a huge licensing deal. Nothing was stopping him from controlling his work prior to that deal.
> Of course there's something to see: the latest glacial shift in the accretion of content control by tech platforms.
The other side of the coin is that everyone is selling out. We're just returning to the patronage (clientela) model where everyone parrots the patrons for a cut of the profit, legal contract and everything - except Joe Rogan isn't at risk of dying destitute if he doesn't comply and his patrons are faceless corporations.
The thing to see here (literally, or listen to), is how Joe, despite his assertion that there are no limits from Spotify, makes decisions on guests and talking points while someone at spotify holds a hammer over his hand vis a vis killing old episodes. He knows the hosting party doesn't like certain content, and will eliminate episodes that violate some murky line of political correctness - it's impossible that such a dynamic doesn't affect his decisions going forward.
Was Joe Rogan forced to sign the $100M contract with Spotify? If the answer is “no”, then he willingly accepted this contractual arrangement, and all the benefits and consequences of it.
Nothing to see here from a legal viewpoint, yes. Ethically it's very much looking into how a big platform is using its power to hide certain kinds of content from its viewers.
That's not true. When Joe moved to Spotify his entire catalog didn't move, that's what he "didn't care about".
This is a new wave of canceled episodes. And there's no telling if these "activist" employees will find future episodes or more past episodes "problematic", in which case they may also be removed.
It's disconcerting to see the expansion of platform censorship even if the censored party is aware of it, "doesn't care," and was in on the deal. That "it's just business" doesn't make it a neutral development. Spotify gets to decide what ideologies are acceptable for Spotify listeners. This is just one point on the graph. The overall picture is more and more of this stuff, with little or no resistance.
You like that? You feel nothing either way? There is a moral and political valence to this stuff.
I think a lot of folks, myself included, see what you are pointing at and think, "That's not novel. That's the way media works, and has worked, for generations."
What makes Spotify different from, for example, radio stations deciding which music I should listen to in the 50s? Or TV stations deciding which shows I should see in the 80s?
Media companies have always cared and deliberately curated the ideologies they present -- whether that's a political ideology or a marketing one. (I know that a whole lot of the TV shows of my childhood were aimed at selling me toys, for instance.)
I think the division line is you see this as ideological, but to the rest of us it's all just business. Publishers will always be free to choose what they place on offer. On my bookshelf I have a copy of the old Linux Device Drivers book from O'Reilly. The book is no longer being published by them. Could it use an update? Yes, severely, the 3rd edition is over a decade old. Why hasn't it gotten one, is it censorship? No, they don't see a return on investment in it.
Spotify only cares about the episodes because of concern about injuring their brand via giving offense, which is as close to an ideology as any large corporation gets, to the point where folks (such as you, in this case) get offended by their clumsy attempts to avoid offense.
Rogan doesn't care because it's always been about money. He doubtless took a haircut on his audience by moving to Spotify, all in order to get money up front for less effort on his part.
I don’t use Spotify and frankly >= 80% of the content on Spotify is for morons. In any case I do respect your commitment to freedom of speech and liberalism.
If people are worried about Spotify mistreating Joe than, no, there's nothing to see here. But there is absolutely something to see here for those who are worried about preserving content and the precedent for censorship in future episodes of Joe's podcast.
It's understandable. He's routinely allowed right-wing radicals such as Abby Martin and Gavin McInnes and Dave Rubin on his show. I personally would stop using Spotify if they started promoting such hateful content. Paradox of tolerance, etc.
> In September 2015, Martin launched The Empire Files, an interview and documentary series. She has hosted guests including Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, Richard D. Wolff, Ralph Nader and Jill Stein.
I can't tell whether you're running a satire account.
From the articles linked it's almost as if half of Spotify went "yes! Finally we'll have the power to reign that monster in, and silence him. We'll make him our PC puppet! Muhahahaha"
I think it's new. It was intended as a business deal, but the activist-firsts are seeing their chance to silence an enemy.
Don't know why Joe Rogan is treated like some free-speech messiah and Spotify the villain. If he was really that adamant on getting his message out there he would have kept his podcast free. Instead he chose a $100M payday (and the associated censorship terms), and here we are.
His podcast is still free - just needs to be viewed via Spotify. He's a hypocrite considering he's commented how he's pro free speech and likes talking to controversial people but then he goes along with it himself.
My personal preference is for Spotify to leave Rogan's content on their platform with disclaimers, so I can best decide if/how I listen to it.
However, this is not a free speech issue.
"free speech" only makes sense in the context of government regulation (vs individuals/corporations), because governments have a monopoly on violence. As soon as two non-government entities are "regulating each other", it is a matter of mutual free speech. e.g. what about the free speech of Spotify?
There is no hypocrisy here. Rogan can still be pro-"free speech" given that is in the context of government regulation. Rogan can also still be pro-"anti censorship" in terms of stifling competition (which a lot of people conflate with "free speech"). However, Rogan is running a business and so is Spotify, they made a mutually beneficial deal, no competition was stifled.
By your logic, Rosa Parks should have should have just started her own bus company. And how about the government telling "private" businesses to shut down over last year? Are you against the FDA, EPA, FCC, FEC, Net Neutrality too?
I also find it quite interesting how the same people using the "private business" excuse also keep taking a baker to courts for refusing to write something on a cake which is against his beliefs.
As for Joe Rogan, he specifically lied to his viewers (I am saying this as someone who's a fan of his btw). He specifically told viewers last year that he will have full control over his content and Spotify gave him full freedom. He even made bs excuses when a few of his episodes didn't get ported over to Spotify and he claimed it was because of a technical glitch. Somehow the glitches only happened to the "controversial" people shows.
I am surprised he hasn't been class action sued yet considering his false claims and advertisements might have gotten many people to subscribe to Spotify. As a fan of his, this was deeply disappointing and I actually hope he gets sued for lying to his viewers.
> By your logic, Rosa Parks should have should have just started her own bus company.
This analogy only works if and only if Rosa Parks was getting paid $100 MM to sit in the back of the bus. Rest assured, both of us agree she was in a very, very different situation.
> As for Joe Rogan, he specifically lied to his viewers
Yeah, I agree this is a reasonable assertion. JRE should not have made claims they couldn’t keep.
Gotta love the constant movement of goalposts and gaslighting around this. As in many other cases it started with claims that nobody intends to censor any content during the move. Then when deletions actually took place the narrative radically shifted to the claim that content removal was always the obvious, natural and reasonable course and there should be no controversy, because it was inevitable all along.
Joe himself constructed that narrative and he knew what he signed up for. $100m does that to people.
Does anyone need to say that SV is left-leaning? Some of us bought into the idea that Joe's contract protected him from censorship, but now we know that's not the case.
Sounds like they took a page from Ulbricht (Walter, not Ross!): "Nobody has any intention of building a wall", then shortly after starting construction of a wall to imprison the citizens of East Germany, and calling it "the antifascist bulwark". The GDR soldiers that shot fleeing citizens in the back were praised as heroes that defended the glorious Soviet Republic against traitors.
Off-topic but still makes me sad: Spotify removed all episodes of Joe Rogan for me by removing podcasts feature from Ukrainian (and not only) users. I’m a paid user btw. Worst part is that since JRE is free for such large part of internet users, it’s impossible to find on torrents unless it’s Elon Musk or similar. Sigh.
This. This is the answer. Political whining is mainly due to the disempowerment of users in favor of these centralized gatekeepers. Being able to just act is the antidote.
He stopped uploading full episodes since beginning of this year. Only select clips get uploaded now. Good amount of comments is about lack of comments in Spotify. A lot of us come to a video mostly to interact with the comments, as we already are familiar with the content.
Different channels have entirely different comments. e.g. same piece on CNN will have VERY different view points vs the same video posted on Fox News.
Channels like Joe Rogan are good in that you can find a more balanced comment section with both opposing viewpoints being respected or disrespected, more or less equally.
Usually it's business - not discrimination. Content is licensed by country, so the content owners (at least think) they can get more value elsewhere.
In a way we should welcome this. We don't really want spotify to determine what content to distribute globally.
Global platforms like Steam are aggressively discounted for Ukraine, so unfortunately Ukrainian audience members * Ukrainian market value is probably just not high enough.
It sounds like both. I obviously don’t think Spotify discriminate due to reasons other than business, I just think decisions like this should become less frequent.
I think you are wrong with regards to “more value somewhere else”. I think the decision was made because they didn’t want to show the “podcasts” section until they can ensure the experience will be great and they have content moderation and such. So they did the simplest thing. But my point is that it does more harm than they realize, since their view of the world is too simplistic and non-globalised.
I don’t think it has anything to do with racism, even more, I suspect it has more to do with the product (not launching podcasts in Ukraine till they have moderation, experience curation and such) than business.
The answer is simple: think a bit more about modern world, which is more globalised than one thinks and the trend is to only globalise further. YouTube didn’t have any problem letting me watch JRE, so at least in that respect I’m sure the solution is possible.
I wonder how much longer Spotify will continue to delude themselves that they can take successful podcasts and put them into their walled garden -- turning off legit, public RSS feeds -- and that it will somehow work out for them. Rumor is that Apple is going to launch premium podcasts and turn off access to the iTunes podcast directory in order to have their own walled garden for select, paid podcasters. Eventually these companies will figure out that OPEN is the only way to go but they will lose money on their walled gardens in the mean time.
Existing podcast ecosystem is already entrenched. I'm in the process of disentangling myself from all tech monopolies and people are wiser to it now more than ever.
TV shows began on network TV. The whole point of podcasting was anyone can start one. Unlike TV shows, it's quite easy from a technical perspective to host a podcast. Audio talk shows don't have to be high bitrate.
Honestly I think stranglehold on video will similarly fade away when high speed internet is highly available everywhere.
> I'm in the process of disentangling myself from all tech monopolies and people are wiser to it now more than ever.
I don't think most people will go through the hassle of disentangling themselves from tech monopolies. What's the benefit? For most people, having everything managed by Google/Apple/Facebook is a benefit rather than a bad thing.
> The whole point of podcasting was anyone can start one.
They don't need to add value for the end user if they can control the scarce resource (content) by buying it up and providing more lucrative monetisation options for creators.
Their play is a hybrid of a streaming service and an adtech giant, and I imagine they're keeping their options open to see whether it pays to keep both sides of that model open or to pick one. Either way, one of the reasons I don't like what they're doing is because I can see it working.
Besides all that, there is some value to having all of your audio in one app.
Assuming enough listeners put up with it. I don’t see it lasting though, the barrier to entry is low and I bet talking to other people is a talent that many people have.
This completely ignores the fact that hosting costs don't really matter. If Spotify can make more money on new subscriptions than they paid some content creator for exclusivity then it's worth it to them. And if the content creator gets more money by selling their exclusivity to some platform than they got for ads then it's worth it to them too.
And if listeners don’t cancel their subscriptions in response, then Spotify bet correctly. But it’s nearly trivial to record audio of yourself talking to someone, so if a sufficient number of people want to consume the content Spotify doesn’t want to host, I’m betting they will be able to find it elsewhere by a different podcast.
Streaming services are still significantly more frictionless than what came before it. Moving podcasts into a walled garden makes them harder to access than what we have now.
The point is that you couldn't publish without an FCC license, which required deep pockets. Publishing an RSS feed requires a host and a domain, which can be had today for a grand total of $70/year if one goes with the cheapest DigitalOcean VPS or under $20/year if one does a little research.
Hosting a few MP3s and a text file that can be downloaded in a few seconds is a lot cheaper and easier than a video streaming setup (or a 10-20 kilowatt broadcast transmitter).
Premium podcasts already exist in the wild, but there's no way in hell Apple could just shut down a market as big as free podcasts. The next player to arise will be Google who is going to press their products for programmatic advertising.
By the time you're in a position to buy 100M of anything, the way you extract and calculate value fundamentally changes. Spotify is a public company with a market cap of ~$50 billion so even a 1% movement in stock price can mean hundreds of millions of dollars of extra capital through stock sales or credit lines and easier recruiting. It can mean meeting contractual obligations on existing credit lines or stock heavy acquisitions that make or break other, more important deals. It can mean that one big media story they need every quarter to maintain brand awareness and maintain an intangible mote or keeping a well respected exec around longer by scratching their ego, delaying the possible depression in the stock price when they leave. Hell, their original content department might be really good at their job and so they had to fill a 100M hole in their budget so their budget grows instead of shrinks the year after.
Usually though, it means empire building and millions in bonuses for executives who won't be held accountable for the long term effects of the move.
The opening lines of this article are a great example of how to write alarmist copy:
> Just last week, Digital Music News first reported that 40 different Joe Rogan Experience podcast episodes were found missing from Spotify, now the exclusive platform for the show. Now, that number has quickly grown to 42
Why didn’t they just put warning that claims in these podcasts are not verified? I don’t understand tech righteousness and superiority what other people can and cannot listen. In this case, the thing sis already published, it’s already marked for mature audience. Why certain committees feel so superior of themselves that people cannot be allowed to listen some interviews? They even blocked coffee maker because his views on longevity is too controversial? Wtf?
And Rogan knew exactly who he was signing with (a risk-averse media company). Two parties voluntarily decided to do business according to some mutually agreeable terms. None of this should be surprising or outrageous to anyone...but, here we are.
So they appear to have mutually agreed to remove content to conform to the prevailing pressure to restrict public discourse to only politically correct content. While it is certainly their right to make any business arrangement they want, it is distressing that open conversation continues to shrink in our world, whether it be through unilateral cancelation or mutual agreement for the sake of money.
> it is distressing that open conversation continues to shrink in our world
Are you sure about that? When has talk about Bigfoot, moon landing conspiracies, the government turning frogs gay, and other such nonsense been welcome in "open conversation"?
I suspect the point of contention here is that people expect their unsubstantiated nonsense to be taken seriously, treated with respect, and accepted by the general public.
I am a long-time listener, but I am highly selective. The majority of the removed episodes in this list are the type of episodes that I skip. If I am going to spend 3 hours, I like to spend it with guests of the caliber of Bryan Fogel, Moxie Marlinspike, et al. I feel JRE is at its best when Joe is sitting across from someone who is from a different planet.
Where can I find an archive online? I am really disappointed that Spotify is removing all these episodes, and have refused to give their podcasts any attention as a result.
If there was one, Spotify would sue to have it taken down. The goal of censorship isn't to remove "offensive" content from Spotify: the goal is to remove it from existence, completely, as though it had never been.
I don't know why there are downvotes. Spotify holds the rights to the episode, and would absolutely file a takedown request. There's no "but they aren't making it available!" copyright exception.
I wonder if/how much the move cost his listener ship.
I see in the comments pleas for Joe to come back to Youtube.
I dont know why this happens but Spotify does not work with UConnect on my Jeep. It plays for 1-2 seconds and then mutes. Spotify is the only music/audio platform that doesnt work with Uconnect, but that immediately removes it from being played in my car. Long car rides are where I consume podcasts, so no Joe Rogan.
I don't listen to Rogan anymore but I'm knee deep into MMA and I constantly see complaints about spotify by other people in my young male demo. Even people who have a spotify sub hate it because their video player is terrible compared to yt. Then there's tons of people who don't have spotify so they mostly stopped besides clips that get posted to yt. Could be just a thing of a mad vocal minority, but every time his mma interviews pop up it's filled with massively upvoted comments complaining about spotify.
I used to listen alot more before the Spotify deal. The podcast listening experience in the app is hot garbage.
I am a paying premium paying customer. Why do I get ads in the beginning and middle of the podcast? And there was a bug where to if you skip too fast, it jumps back to replaying the ads again. Super frustrating.
I don't ever watch the podcast video stream but the few times I did, it was super buggy, sometimes jumping forward/backward in time or simply not responding to input.
Luckily a random redditor posted a URL where you can listen to podcast using traditional RSS [1][2].
Anecdotal, but post-Spotify, I have probably watched less than 10% as much as I used to--paying Spotify customer as well. The Spotify video/podcast UX is awful.
I was a big consumer of JRE on youtube. I enjoyed the content and the comments. I haven't watched a single episode on Spotify and I have a paid family plan.
I used to listen to maybe 20% of his podcasts before Spotify. After I listen to 1%.
It’s a combination of the Spotify app being really bad and being different than all my other podcasts. I browse new episodes from all my subs through my regular player and rarely open a separate app just to see what’s new with JRE.
Check if your phone has a per-app setting for "optimize battery usage" or "sleep background apps" or something like that. Spotify was stopping 2 seconds after I turned my phone's screen off, and disabling the battery optimization fixed it.
Thanks nitrogen- Unfortunately it has been a consistent thing across phones with the common link being my 1 year before apple car play UConnect receiver. Pretty sure that is the culprit. It will works with an iPhone cable connected(but I hate cables in my car), but bluetooth audio does not(spotify only) I dont see any preference for battery usage for spotify and I have background app refresh enabled.
I think it's because they have anti-adblocking tech.
Imagine being media in 2021 and denying access to your site based on adblocking? I instantly close the site. What are they providing that I can't get elsewhere? What are they providing beyond the headline?
I've never heard of the digitalmusicnews.com but I submitted it as the URL for this story, because all other mainstream news sources cited it as the site that first noticed and broke the news:
This sucks for Joe and I can't say i didn't see it coming.
What would you do: take $100 million and get silenced? Or refuse the money and remain independent?
Also the listening/viewing experience on spotify is horrible. I used to get podcasts on my app of choice and have the YouTube videos running in the background. I've definitely stopped listening as much
Reading some comments here enlightened me... "It sucks for Joe"? He's got 100 million reasons he agreed to this arrangement, I don't think he gives a shit. Yeah you hurt for him because you think he's suffering under the censorship, but if I were him I'd just laugh at my brainwashed loyal fans, as well as at Spotify which is filling his bank account and is rewarded with hate by a lot of parties (the Joe fanboys, the Joe haters, the Joe haters employed by them...).
HackerNews usually: But they're a private company, they can do what they want!!!
Reality is Spotify and other companies are trying to corner the podcast market, this is going to lead to more censorship in this space. You might be inclined to say creators can just avoid these platforms but it will become harder not to use those platforms when looking for an audience.
Rogan despite portraying a right leaning / freedom of speech angle doesn't actually really care so it's not surprising he just grabbed the money and accepted censorship.
The tech platforms have a meekness problem. Rogan's payday secures his family's future for the next few generations because he did some funny fancy talking to some weirdos on the internet, so good for him. On the censorship issue, meh, there's nothing to add, it's not a discussion or rational discourse. We can only hope the alternative is entertaining.
What do you mean, "meekness"? They got flak for hosting rogan in the first place. Now they're getting flak for taking down a small fraction of his content. Outrage, engaged! Are they "meek" because they're doing something you disagree with, are they "meek" for doing something you agree with, or is choosing a middle path necessarily meekness?
To be precise, Spotify and other platforms have been cowed into dropping episodes and people because they are afraid of the anonymous histrionics from small mobs. The same goes for every other platform. They directly enable and reward the very people they seem to fear. Do the platforms think these mobs can be appeased, or that they will relent once you satisfy them? They've negotiated with terrorists and compromised everyone else in the process. This is their meekness problem.
But what if the people making the decisions agree with the people you're describing as a terrorist mob? What if some of them do, and some of them don't, and this compromise reflects the diverse viewpoints of the people involved? Or what if it's a purely monetary decision, where hosting rogan is expected to be more profitable than not, and removing a few of his more controversial casts is expected to be more profitable still?
In calling them meek, you're making a value judgement. They're weak because you see them as relenting to outside pressure. But that's what businesses do -- they chase money, and to do that effectively means following the whims of the market. And people are entitled to their own opinions, which may differ from your own. Neither is meekness.
When I see a compelling op-ed or a principled stand against mobs from a mainstream platform, media, or consumer products executive, I'll certainly revisit my view, but until then, I'm sure they are compensated for any respect they may have traded.
This seems analogous to Howard Stern moving from terrestrial radio to satellite radio. Big financial win for the star, but ultimately less accessible content for the casual listeners.
That being said, I think every show has been pirated and is available for download somewhere.
Joe should get on to LBRY / Odysee. It would be the tipping point in moving to decentralised platforms. He'd probably make a killing too as LBRY makes it really easy to tip content creators.
In similar news, I continue to ignore podcasts on spotify. This mixing of purpose is harmful to the service in the long term. I wish nothing except failure for spotify podcasts.
I’ve listened to Rogan episodes for years, and often really enjoy them. I honestly at this point think he’s top tier sociopath who has been playing both political sides for years. He cashed in, he won. That’s all.
Their users? Their content creators? Or rather their staff?
All 3 groups could be possible reasons. But given how little median content creators matter to the organization, users and staff are more likely.
But if it were the users, then why buy Joe Rogan's users at all? Especially at a record braking price?
This makes me believe it's more likely staff.
If that is the case one has to wonder: is this generally the sad mental state of tech workers? Or is it rather a few employees who, emboldened by cancel-culture, will toss their political agenda around the office while other employees, intimidated by cancel-culture, shy away from calling out the obvious BS?
Society in the west seems to not know how to deal with this new variety of bullying. By cloaking their bullying in the veil of righteousness, bullies are able to engage in self-aggrandisement to satisfy the tyrannical need to shape the world in the image that they desire, without engaging in the civilized discourse and debate that would preclude such decision making. The justification thrown around is that the cause is righteous and therefore the ends justify the means, which is pretty much the same justification that has been used by every tyrant in the past.
Standing up to them comes at a high cost, but when has it ever been easy. Perhaps the rest of society has too much to lose now.
>Society in the west seems to not know how to deal with this new variety of bullying
Society in the West in contrast to... what exactly? Are you under the impression non-Western societies don't shape culture based on norms and expectations about what's proper or right? How is Spotify deleting episodes from their own platform tyranny? Jesus people have become so dramatic and whiny. Here's a crazy idea, if you don't want your episodes deleted don't sell rights to your intellectual property for 100 million bucks to another party
> Here's a crazy idea, if you don't want your episodes deleted don't sell rights to your intellectual property for 100 million bucks to another party
It is especially weird considering this was basically a foregone conclusion the moment Rogan signed with Spotify. Take a look at the HN comments when the news broke[1].
Spotify has a policy that says they won't host certain content. Rogan and his guests have a history of saying things that don't fit that content policy. It didn't take a genius to see those two things were incompatible. I'm not sure there is any convincing argument that Rogan is being mistreated for walking right into this easily predictable situation.
> Spotify has a policy that says they won't host certain content. Rogan and his guests have a history of saying things that don't fit that content policy.
Assuming we're not talking about infringing or illegal content, we're left to conclude that Rogan "promotes, advocates, or incites hatred or violence against a group or individual based on characteristics, including, race, religion, gender identity, sex, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, veteran status, or disability."
Note, that does not mean "has an un-PC take on something", it very specifically says promotes, advocates or incites hatred or violence. Where and when has Rogan ever done that?
I don't listen to Rogan. I can't speak to the specifics of what he says on his podcast. I know that he has had on multiple recurring guests that have been deplatformed elsewhere such as Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos. Rogan also can't seem to go more than a few months without receiving accusations of transphobia[1]. You are also welcome to click through the link in my previous comment and see the issue discussed in depth including my thoughts on it. "Promotes hate" is an impossible to define phrase, but many people feel he is guilty of it.
I do listen to Rogan and I'm aware of the trans controversy. What he actually took issue with was a trans woman who fought in women's MMA without telling her competitors that she was trans. This creates a serious safety risk in what is already a dangerous sport, and it was irresponsible of her to lie. Rogan didn't even say trans women shouldn't compete, just that they should disclose it so the people they're fighting know what they're getting into and can make an informed decision.
If pointing out simple biological realities like "the bodies of people who go through puberty as a male have more muscle mass than the bodies of people who go through puberty as a female" constitutes "promoting hate" then the concept has no meaning. If a phrase is "impossible to define" perhaps it is not a good basis on which to form a policy.
In the context of MMA what he said was they should disclose it and ciswomen can choose to go into the fight or not, I am not lying about that.
The clip you posted was about weightlifting. If a biological man can call himself a woman and compete in women's weightlifting, why don't we just get rid of the gender categories altogether and have men and women compete together? If we did that, do you think any woman, trans or cis, would ever win a title again?
Regardless, reasonable people can disagree about these things. Back to the original question: in what conceivable way does any of this constitute promoting hatred or violence? Rogan said that people who are biologically male should compete with other people who are also biologically male, I don't see where he said we should beat them up or kill them or anything like that? So we are not allowed to have differences of opinion about which competitions people should compete in?
>Rogan didn't even say trans women shouldn't compete
This is what Rogan said (rough transcript):
>[When you let a trans women competing against cisgender women] you are stealing from [cisgender] women, you are stealing victory, you are cheating, you are fucking 100% cheating, and anybody who says they are not is an asshole.
You are misrepresenting Rogan's point to make it sound more acceptable. He is not speaking specifically about MMA. He is not talking about other competitors having a choice. He is just straight saying that a trans woman is cheating by competing against cis women.
>[When you let a trans women competing against cisgender women] you are stealing from [cisgender] women, you are stealing victory, you are cheating, you are fucking 100% cheating, and anybody who says they are not is an asshole.
^ What’s wrong with that statement? It’s a crude way to phrase things, but it’s true. Saying trans women have a biologic advantage when competing against cis women is not transphobic.
He has spoken about this on a number of different occasions. The one clip you happened to find at the top of your google search does not constitute everything he ever said on the topic.
This is where he's talking about MMA. There were other occasions where he mentioned disclosing it. I don't remember the exact episode and timestamp.
But like I said above (sorry, edited as I thought more). What does any of this have to do with promoting hate or violence? Does thinking people should compete in this or that competition somehow mean you hate them?
>The one clip you happened to find at the top of your google search does not constitute everything he ever said on the topic.
I never said it did constitute everything he has ever said on the topic. However that isn't the point. Not every episode is being removed. Only some of them are. He can be accepting of trans people on 99 episodes and it doesn't undo being transphobic on the 100th.
It is also possible his opinions have evolved over time, but we aren't judging his current opinion. All that maters is what was said on the specific episodes being removed.
>What does any of this have to do with promoting hate or violence? Does thinking people should compete in this or that competition somehow mean you hate them?
You are the one who brought sports into this. I simply stated he has been repeatedly accused of transphobia. His opinion on sports is part of that, but it isn't the only time he has been called transphobic.
> You are the one who brought sports into this. I simply stated he has been repeatedly accused of transphobia. His opinion on sports is part of that, but it isn't the only time he has been called transphobic.
Ok, then find a clip where he promotes violence against trans people or any other group or tells people to hate them. The burden of proof is on people making the claim to provide evidence that supports it, not the other way around.
Edit:
To get back to the fundamental question here. The issue is, Spotify has a policy. Does Rogan violate the policy or not? By your own description, the policy hinges on terms that are "impossible to define". So, is a policy with undefinable terms a good policy? Is there any objective way to determine whether it was violated or not and apply it fairly and consistently to everyone? If not, why are we holding up the policy as a gold standard and using it as a justification for censorship when it is impossible to determine whether or not it was violated?
I didn't accuse him of transphobia. I said he can't go a few months without new accusations of transphobia. That is just a fact. If you want, you can go through those Google results from a few comments back and try to refute those accusations. I don't care enough about Joe Rogan to try to prove anything about him.
I never said Spotify's policy was "a gold standard" or even "good policy". I'm not defending their actions in removing specific episodes. I have no idea why those specific episodes were removed. I simply started with a comment that this was an obvious eventuality due to Spotify's policy and what Rogan says (it is a simple fact that he is often accused of spreading hate speech, whether what he says is actually hate speech is almost irrelevant because the accusations alone are enough to know that he would eventually be perceived to have violated the policy).
"I didn't accuse him of being a Kenyan. I said he can't go a few months without new accusations of being a Kenyan. That is just a fact. If you want, you can go through those Google results from a few comments back and try to refute those accusations. I don't care enough about Barack Obama to try to prove anything about him."
Ok, if I understand correctly based on this and your original comment, you make two claims.
1. This was an "obvious eventuality"
2. This does not constitute mistreatment of Rogan by Spotify.
First, many of the episodes such as the Milo Yiannopoulos one predate the Spotify deal. Spotify knew what they were buying and should have said at the time what they were and were not willing to host. Only Spotify and and Rogan know for sure the details of what was in their contract, but from what Rogan has said on the show, they had agreed that Spotify would have no creative control and they would host the whole catalog. I doubt very, very much that anyone would engage in a 9-figure contract without spelling out these details. If Spotify has decided to renege on what they agreed to, I think that makes it both non-obvious that that would happen and mistreatment (they are not honoring the contract).
Whenever these controversies arise, if Rogan mentions them on the show at all he says that nobody from Spotify says anything to him about them and he gets no feedback from them at all about the content, since they aren't supposed to have any creative control over the show. Maybe he's lying, but if not, I think that would also be non-obvious and mistreatment if Spotify is telling Rogan there's no problem and then taking content down behind his back.
And just...I don't understand this attitude. "Well of course people will make baseless accusations, and you'll be punished because of them without anyone trying to figure out the facts! You know this will happen, so it's not a problem!" Like....yes, that's a problem.
"Of course you get sent to the gulag if someone accuses you of criticizing Stalin. You know it doesn't matter if it's true or not! You know all this, so it's not mistreatment! It's just an obvious eventuality!"
When the narrative can't be twisted to their favor, they will simply cancel your responses.
These are the same people that would argue cancel culture does not exist.
Edit: I say people, but realistically no human could exist with such flagrant disregard for logic and reasonable discourse.
Do you truly believe that this person would have no advantage competing against cisgender woman? I think most people would be able to see the obvious advantage Janae gained from formerly being a male.
It is just as "fair" as it is for me to compete against LeBron James for a spot in the NBA. Sports are inherently unfair. They take a tremendous amount of work, but it is almost never about work alone. The best athletes are almost always born with physical gifts that are huge outliers.
The truth is that trans women have been allowed to compete on the collegiate and international stages for almost two decades at this point. Where are all the transgender athletes dominating competition. Why doesn't Janae Kroc have a Olympic gold medal? This fear is mostly unfounded.
EDIT: I did a little more research after posting and I will refer you to the words of Kroc herself[1]:
> And yes as hard as it is to believe for some people one year is a sufficient amount of time for HRT to completely eliminate any advantage that person had and there is significant evidence to back this up. This is also why even though trans women have been able to compete in the Olympics since Athens in 2004 we have not had one single trans woman medal at the Olympics...
>As far as going forward is concerned it's all about education. This is so much misinformation out there and so many people talking about how transwomen will dominate all women's sports and yet that has never happened. It's very similar to the threat of transwomen in bathrooms concerning child safety. No recorded incidents ever but it was used as a scare tactic to enact laws.
According to the Wikipedia page, it seems Janae only competed before transitioning in men's weightlifting, at which point he[1] held several world records.
So, to answer your question, the reason Janae does not hold a gold medal in women's weightlifting, is that she never competed as a woman.
It is not really comparable to an average, non-professional athlete competing against a professional athlete. A fair comparison would be Lebron James competing against Breanna Stewart (WNBA Finals MVP) or the LA Lakers competing against the Houston Comets.
And hey, that might be interesting! But it's not currently what we're doing. Again, if biological sex doesn't make any difference in sports, then why even have separate men's and women's competitions at all?
[1] The Wikipedia page notes she uses male pronouns when referring to the time before transitioning.
Anyone who actually listens to his podcast knows that it's not true that he promotes hate.
I love how you resort to the "many people feel" standard with a hand wave. Many people where I live feel that cell phone towers give them cancer so we need to get rid of the cell phone towers on that burden of proof. Many people feel like the moon landing was faked. Many people think educating women is heretical. Shall we surrender to them as well?
Delegating judgment to other people is weak and cowardly. Feel free to form your own opinions based on your observation of the facts but it's disgusting to come in here and say "many people".
No, he hasn't denied the moon landing as far as I know. I haven't heard the episodes you're referring to, but he's had other guests like Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Elon Musk who have discussed space travel and he's never expressed any skepticism about it.
So, by your own admission, you’re basing your criticism of Joe Rogan on hearsay? Also, there is absolutely nothing wrong with interviewing controversial people. Maybe I’m in the minority these days but I personally like hearing contrarian views because it allows me to form my own opinion on people and subjects without relying on others to tell me what to believe.
Plenty of news sources come up in that Google search so you say "hearsay" and I say "reporting". Either way, the guy has literally thousands of hours of podcasts. I don't think someone needs to have listened to every single minute to have an opinion on the guy.
There is also a difference between someone with "contrarian views" and someone with dangerous views. I got no problem if he has someone on to talk about how we shouldn't introduce gun regulation in the wake of Sandy Hook. I have a problem with him giving a platform to someone who says Sandy Hook was fake, the parents who lost children are actors, and they should be harassed into admitting as much. Nothing good comes from giving a guy like that more attention, power, and money by having him on the show.
> I don't think someone needs to have listened to every single minute to have an opinion on the guy.
Agreed, but the least you could do is link to examples of him saying those things, since it's all recorded we don't need to rely on biased third-party reports.
I do a lot of walking and listen to podcasts when I do it.
I've listened to quite a few Rogan podcasts, I have never heard anything overly objectionable. (I have heard some stuff that was maybe critical of some parts of my own life, but I was ok with it.) Rogan is very entertaining, you might try some and see if you like it.
Also: I've found that I sometimes find podcasts featuring people I completely disagree with. I find that when I listen to these, I frequently learn interesting things. I'm sometimes offended a bit, but I knew that going in. I may be fooling myself, but I think it's making me a more well-rounded person.
Comments like the one you replied to honestly seem kind of silly. The "problem" you're describing is as old as time, it's not some new phenomenon the west bumped into.
People across the world calling you a fascist / communist, with 30 seconds of effort, to their and your 1,000 closest friends, seems like a pretty new phenomenon.
Sarcasm really doesn't help online communication. I think they're referring to a phenomenon called "dogpiling" where a twitterer says something about a person they don't like, and their followers have a field day trashing the person. The phenomenon isn't new, but the magnitude is.
Come to think of it, maybe just the speed and availability. Mass letter writing campaigns are totally a thing, but they require significant efforts to coordinate
The push (vs pull) / broadcasting nature seems different to me.
Previously, more interaction was personal and ephemeral. If I said something to someone on the street, maybe the 5 closest people heard me.
In a small town, word would probably get around in ~2 weeks of social interactions, if it was scandalous enough.
Now, on the majority of social media platforms, if you reply to me then all of my friends + all of your friends immediately see the reply. Both the broadcasting and immediacy seem relatively novel.
That the difference in canceling between the Western vs non-Western world is only in the cultural/norms dimension, is intellectually dishonest in my humble opinion.
A professor being canceled for saying e.g. that male and female brains are anatomically different, or worse, that non-binary genders is not a thing, has more to do with something else than culture/norms.
That something else is an interesting subject which has actually been discussed on JRE. :)
> Society in the West in contrast to... what exactly?
The brief period in time during which enlightenment values were held in higher regard.
> How is Spotify deleting episodes from their own platform tyranny?
The parent comment referred to staff within large tech companies. Anecdotally I hear plenty of stories about how activists have essentially bullied their way into positions of influence at some of the large tech companies, particularly to influence these types of decisions. Perhaps it is a coincidence in this case.
Yes, I support the right of any private business to engage in ideological censorship if they want to. I don't care if it's Spotify and Rogan or a Christian business censoring atheists or a homophobic cake shop not selling gay wedding cakes. They all ought to have the right to choose how they do business.
If you don't like it, don't sell your rights away, and go somewhere else. That's how free societies work. Private citizen can lobby, workers can protest, customers can boycott, and everyone's free to start their own venture with their own rules, that's how you deal with it.
Removing random episodes offering no reasoning is tyrannical. It being "their platform" is a non-statement as that's the only place they can be tyrants.
No, it's not. It's about as tyrannical as a chef deciding what meals she serves in her own restaurant. While we're on the topic of Western civilization, people deciding what they do with their own property in their private businesses is actually the basis of Western civilization, in contrast to the apparently now mainstream take that they ought to be compelled to host something they don't want to host.
A tyrant is someone who puts dissidents up against the wall and puts a bullet in their head, not a streaming platform deciding what they want to stream.
How is it tyranny? Under the most liberal definition tyranny is: "cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary use of power or control."
It certainly is not cruel for any definition of cruel I am familiar with. It certainly isn't arbitrary, Spotify is not doing this on a whim and it isn't taking down all the episodes, it clearly is being very deliberate, though you may disagree with their process. The only one could be unreasonable, but what exactly makes this unreasonable? Again, you may disagree with their reasoning, but it is not an unreasonable position.
Why don't we back off this extreme rhetoric that plagues our conversations today?
> It certainly isn't arbitrary... [a]gain, you may disagree with their reasoning, but it is not an unreasonable position.
Those are slightly incorrect interpretations of the words 'arbitrary' and 'unreasonable'.
Reasonable doesn't mean 'has reasons'. Every decisions has reasons. If a king decides to chop someone's head off he had reasons - he felt like it. Being reasonable/unreasonable is about whether an opinion can be changed by evidence and argument. Almost all moderation is unreasonable, I've very rarely seen a moderator make a call and then not stick with it (being unreasonable isn't always a bad thing). Reasonableness is a judgement call on the quality of the reasons behind a decision.
Similarly, arbitrary doesn't mean unpredictable. It is a judgement call on whether the reasons behind an action are reasonable. Being done on behalf of a policy doesn't make an action reasonable.
It is quite an easily sustainable argument that any content moderation policy is arbitrary. Compare European vs American media norms around moderating sex - it is pretty easy to argue by comparison some of the standards floating around are arbitrary, because standards differ but both continents produce great media which involves sex.
arbitrary: "based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system."
None of these are by personal whim, there is clearly a process/system in place to determine whether an episode should stay.
unreasonable: "not guided by or based on good sense" and "beyond the limits of acceptability or fairness." Sorry, I just don't see how these decisions could be considered unreasonable. You may disagree with the moral sense of why they are doing this, you may disagree that that is good sense, but that would be best, your opinion, not some empirically correct point of view.
> there is clearly a process/system in place to determine whether an episode should stay.
Which system are you thinking of? There is probably just a content moderation group that makes aye/nay calls. A system is something like judicial review of police actions, or that strange independent review council that Facebook is setting up.
Spotify's 'system' is going to boil down to someone making arbitrary calls. There isn't a science to it.
> Sorry, I just don't see how these decisions could be considered unreasonable.
Millions of people endorse Joe Rogan, he is a benchmark of what acceptability means. Joe Rogan talking about something is almost definitely marking it as something that is a matter of interest to the public and a legit topic of conversation.
He is far more qualified to decide what is and isn't acceptable to his audience and the public discourse than Spotify, some random corporation filled with people who passed a job interview.
Censoring his content is unreasonable by default, unless Spotify has a really compelling argument.
I'm not certain that tyrants pay their employees $100 million.
He is being more than fairly compensated. They don't have to host his white nationalist content.
They pay him handsomely for the privilege of removing the episodes where he uncritically nods along with the likes of Stephan Moleneaux and Alex Jones.
The public platform being the Internet.
Nobody forced Rogan to move their content to a closed platform like Spotify. Before that they seemed to be able to discuss what they wanted with who they wanted.
But instead of their freedom of content production, they picked the money.
That's as simple as that.
If they want to keep producing "freedom" content they just have to break the contract (and give back some of the money) or produce under another name on self owned platform (and build back the community).
> Society in the west seems to not know how to deal with this new variety of bullying
If by new you mean new to the Roman Republic, sure. But pretty much every politician from the first kings and village elders justified what they did, good or bad, as part of the fight for righteousness.
Spotify has 5,000+ employees -- I wouldn't assume for a second that it's the tech workers doing this, I suspect it's probably HR and marketing and so on. It's a big bureaucratic organization.
I like to think if I was at Spotify, and I saw people holding the company hostage like this -- threatening to quit (or whatever) if they don't get their way -- that I would stand up and threaten to do the same if they do get their way.
If the only way to remove the ability of these people to make threats is to create a lose-lose situation for your employer, then you have a responsibility to do that. If enough companies see this happen and are forced to navigate a needless lose-lose situation, maybe we'll see companies take a harder position against advocacy and activism and politics in the workplace. If all else is equal, hopefully they'll be forced to take the position that they would have taken if nobody threatened anything; they'll fall back to their actual principles.
I heard second hand that the folks working at Spotify were incredibly unhappy about this Joe Rogan deal, and one of the reasons for that was because leadership steamrolled over any concerns they had. And there were many.
I don't really know who this guy is or why you'd spend 100 million on him to secure a deal. But he's walking away with that money and Spotify is left with the infighting. They fucked themselves over with that absurd investment.
Why do their concerns matter? I thought private businesses were free to choose to host or not host any content they want, without any regard to anything or anyone? If employees don't like it, they can quit. Presumably, Spotify put some executive in charge of doing the Rogan deal, the board approved it, and that should be that. Donna from Accounting doesn't get a say. If you’re stocking the shelves at the grocery store management doesn’t care that you think they should only sell Wheaties and not Frosted Flakes. It’s not your decision to make.
It is not an absurd investment, Spotify is a commodity technology and taking away Joe Rogan podcast from their biggest competitor (Apple) provides much needed differentiation. Joe Rogan's podcast was the number one podcast on Apple Podcasts. Now it isn't available at all.
I don't think you understand the number of monthly listeners he draws, it was around 200 million or so. If you compare it to Howard Stern's contract of 100 million a year, it's really not a huge stretch for Joe Rogan to negotiate that price for a multi year deal and exclusive rights to the back catalog. You can't suddenly snap your fingers and generate a huge audience, extensive content and marque brand into existence.
> They messed up by betting large on a celebrity and ignoring the fact that Joe Rogan wasn't a cultural fit.
He's a cultural fit for x hundreds of millions. You may not fall into that demographic, but there's no discounting that other cultures exist outside of your own.
They tricked a bunch of users over to their (awful) podcast playing experience, playing (free) podcasts is cheaper than paying for music for your subscribers. I don't think they've made their money back on it yet but any user that plays a podcast is just free (or unspent) money for them.
The only reason I have a Spotify account is for Joe Rogan's podcast. I'm a Youtube premium member, so all the music I need comes from Google, except for Joe Rogan.
He's a pro weed, universal health care loving, self-described left of center guy big in the MMA and stand-up comedy circles.
He now has the world's most popular podcast, but because he frequently has guests who are right wing, despite debating them about these things on the show, he is attacked for giving these folks a platform to spread their ideas.
Due to his expertise in MMA and the fact that he's a formally trained fighter and martial artist, he was shaken by an event he witnessed:
The fracturing of a woman's skull by Fallon Fox, a transgender woman who hid the fact that she had previously been a male, and had recently transitioned from the league. He commented on it.
This put him in very hot water with the trans activist community, despite the fact that the vast majority of the American public has similar concerns.
The reality is this deal made Spotify a lot of money and brought them listeners and advertising revenue. You don't know who he is, but you aren't the target audience, and your opinions and the opinions of the employees don't matter. Spotify exists to make investors money by creating value for the listeners. The employees shouldn't have any power over how it does that, because they own as much as the equity they've been given, and nothing more.
My opinion matters to Spotify executives only so much as me being a paying customer of their platform. They are free to make whatever decisions they want, but are obligated by law to make decisions that benefit their investors. If you are a paying Spotify customer, then yes, your opinion matters to the executives.
Expressing my opinion on a message board isn't a claim that the executives should listen to me.
> They are free to make whatever decisions they want, but are obligated by law to make decisions that benefit their investors.
I'm unaware of any law which requires a business to make money for investors. A business can promise to pay dividends and they can speculate on where their stock can be at a future date, but there is no legal recourse if they lose money.
It's a meme about the case Dodge vs Ford Motor, but all that case said was you can't actively screw your shareholders. Henry Ford had a cash surplus and was deliberately trying to avoid paying dividends to the Dodge brothers.
I was (admittedly poorly) pointing out that the person I was replying to made some effort to share his favourable opinion, which comprises a significant part of the post, while also saying the dissenting ones (mine, Spotify staff) don't matter.
Their logic dictates that none of our opinions matter. That's fine by me; we're squabbling over nothing.
always pay attention who you hire, especially in HR. Woke and activist HR hires woke and activist people, woke and activist people will cause you trouble and can wreck your whole ship. This is true for every industry but especially for media, just look what happened to the once so prestigious news outlets, all taken hostage.
Does this tend to improve the company's financial performance, or is this simply worth doing if you have certain political goals for your company that outweigh financial results? i.e., is this "smart companies" as in those with good financial ideas or "smart companies" as in those who want to build a non-woke world for the next generation?
It seems like most SJW-converged companies have been doing just fine as companies, otherwise the invisible hand of the market would have put a stop to this long ago.
The ironic part is that even the most liberal anti-republican types are made miserable by woke employees. I worked at a tech company that went through the exact process you described. Liberal Democrat types used to keep politics out of the workplace for the most part. Then they started hiring woke brainwashed college students who aligned with them ideologically but not procedural. Now instead of the daily chat at the water cooler, we have employees screaming at meetings about the latest outrage, taking days off because something happened in the news, and crying when being woke doesn't help their performance reviews. Everybody is miserable and managers are fleeing.
The problem with notion this is that 'woke' or 'activist' values are actually pretty reflective of mainstream values in 21st century society. I would worry more about the legal exposure of people who express opposition to diversity/equity/inclusiveness, as these are very likely to be the people who would end up behaving inappropriately and getting the company mired in harassment and discrimination suits.
The very fact these value are called “activist” and “woke” means they aren’t mainstream values.
And it’s not the values, it’s the disruption. If you had anti-abortion Republicans doing the same would everyone be saying how the company should “tread lightly”.
The labels 'activist' and 'woke' are generally applied derisively by people people who don't share these values. To the mainstream these traits are generally not even labeled, they're just what we consider common decency in this decade. When my parents were my age it was 'activist' and 'woke' to be in favor of mixed race marriages. Times change.
> And it’s not the values, it’s the disruption.
People want to feel like they're in a career that aligns with their values, and the more in demand your talent is, the more you're able to make demands of your employers to have them be values-aligned. If employers don't need top shelf talent, they're free to ignore that and be less competitive in the market for talent. However, successful companies usually tend to compete. We're talking about Spotify because they competed for and hired high-grade talent, and that high-grade talent wants their company to be values-aligned.
It's absolutely mainstream on all sides to try to silence people you disagree with, and it always has been. Republicans tried to silence Nike and the NFL over Colin Kaepernick, Democrats tried to silence companies for doing business with the apartheid regime in South Africa, Republicans are trying to silence Coke and Delta for their support of voting rights, civil rights era people tried to silence racist bus companies, evangelicals are constantly trying to silence all manner of businesses all the time. It's a long-standing American tradition at this point.
Sure you can find specific examples, but thankfully the US still has some semblance of celebrating free speech.
And your examples of silence seem fuzzy. Who was trying to “silence” (suppress speech) of South Africa? Suppress their racist political system? Sure, but I don’t recall anyone saying they can’t talk.
That whole premise is flawed. First, they often describe themselves as activists. Second, they are clearly not for diversity and inclusion. It's about conformity and exclusion. They are anti-free speech, pro censorship and bully those who don't conform. You can't square that intolerance with any desire to be diverse and inclusive.
I agree with another poster that Spotify employees should stand up on principle in opposition to the internal employees that are now running the asylum.
I listen to JRE on Spotify and am not happy about the decision. Actually the first episode I listened to was an Alex Jones + Tim Dillon episode (Tim being a comic I like) that is now gone. And while I don't agree with Alex Jones, I listened to it because I expected it to be controversial or nutty.
There are people who say once you give in to the woke mob they won't stop there, I wouldn't be surprised if now they know they can get other targets canceled if those targets don't consume their orthodoxy.
It should be named what it is, and has always been: anti-free speech.
The line is when you take actions designed to prevent someone else from ever speaking, or people hearing their speech, instead of (as is your right) loudly calling them a *ist.
My personal preference is for Spotify to leave Rogan's content on their platform with disclaimers, so I can best decide if/how I listen to it. However, this is not a free speech issue.
"free speech" only makes sense in the context of government regulation (vs individuals/corporations), because governments have a monopoly on violence. As soon as two non-government entities are "regulating each other", it is a matter of mutual free speech. e.g. what about the free speech of Spotify?
Rogan sold his intellectual property, i.e. his speech, including the speech of his guests, to Spotify. Now depending on the contract (I do not know what the exclusivity clauses look like) Rogan might be able to host that content on other platforms, or he might not. Either way, on Spotify's platform, legally the speech is Spotify's not Rogan's nor the guests.
FWIW, if recorded conversations/speech cannot be considered intellectual property, that can be bought and sold, all current media will be impacted as it cannot be run as a business.
Is there a source for this? Seems way more likely to be monetarily pushed by either investors or advertisers (as other poster said) or at least pre-emptively done to appease those groups.
> One of the submitted questions was "Many LGBTQAI+/ally Spotifiers feel unwelcome and alienated because of leadership's response in JRE conversations. What is your message to those employees?" Another was “Why has Spotify chosen to ignore Spectrum ERG's guidance about transphobic content in the JRE catalog?,” referring to a group of Spotify workers who focus on related issues.
> At the meeting, Ek also told employees not to leak to the media, noting "If we can't have open, confidential debates, we will have to move those discussions to closed doors."
Although it should be noted that the main episode at issue in that controversy, with Abigail Shrier, wasn't one of the ones removed in this recent wave and is still on Spotify.
"ERG" in this context is probably an Employee Resource Group - a pretty common construct at larger organizations. Think of them as a formal way for employees with some kind of shared set of goals or concerns to organize and support each other, usually completely distinct from their actual job function.
ERGs often have some kind of liaison from HR, especially since they are often associated with diversity programs. But the ERG itself is usually just advisory if they're consulted on something the company is doing.
Why would they? They got enough money and reach to go directly on platforms themselves...
On other hand, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the companies marketing on things like pod casts... Some pretty famous ones don't seem to be too special products, see Raid Shadowlegends, Raycon and all of the VPN providers...
Definitely, but Joe Rogan is nowhere near that line.
I don't have a problem with the platform restricting content. I have a problem with the behavior of the employees reaching outside of their role to forward their political goals. If your job is to curate content, and you disagree with the content of JRE, you would have stopped the deal from happening in the first place.
> employees reaching outside of their role to forward their political goals
The vast majority of executives in the corporate world are conservative, and in addition to personally supporting conservative movements, they frequently direct company resources towards furthering right leaning agendas.
Is it really that offensive that a handful of employees are at a handful of tech companies are trying to steer the ship in the other direction? Are you similarly offended when oil companies lobby the government to further the oil industries interests? Are you offended when corporations successfully push congress to pass tax breaks largely targeted at corporations and the rich?
I think it's pretty clear that Spotify wants to host it, seeing as they paid $100 million for the right to do so. It seems some employees, whom Spotify did not entrust with the decision to host this content or not, are mad about it and are attempting a hostile takeover of their company to run it according to their own politics instead of how the owners and managers have decided to do.
There's a another group - ephemeral online mobs - People not involved with the content at hand in any way, shape or form contribute to a reactionary admonition and I'm sure businesses just want to avoid the controversy altogether. I don't know about Rogan for instance, but Hulu removed 4 episodes of sunny because of racist caricatures. They certainly were racist but the joke was on the characters using the caricatures. It's a silly example but nuance be damned. I don't think Spotify thinks its censoring anything, they just don't want trouble.
The Sunny in Philadelphia thing makes no sense at all. Supposedly, Tina Fey pre-emptively asked to remove some of her own 30 rock episodes and that caused others to need to look like they’re doing something lest they be caught up in a PR storm. Makes zero sense in the context of comedies using it as the butt of jokes though.
That was the canary in the coal mine for me that activist mob outrage is getting out of hand. Another case of Gell Mann amnesia. When it’s a topic I’m extremely familiar with, the preemptive removal or outrage doesn’t make any sense.
Those episodes literally had a discussion about the problems of blackface, and the point of the show is that the characters are terrible people and that’s why the characters did it.[0]
Like you said, all nuance is lost in proactively defending against the online activist mob and we lose good discussion in the process.
Spotify bought Rogan because they want his average listener, it's cheaper for them to stream a podcast than to pay royalties on a song. They also don't want to have to answer questions about why a podcaster they (quasi) employ is doing X controversial thing. So that's what they do, they buy him and drop the controversial bits. It's not really that hard to understand is it?
Until you remember that his most popular episodes, and those that keep people coming back, are some of the most controversial. Talking about drugs, legalisation, smoking blunts with celebrities, hunting, and frankly being an openly right wing fanatic with some pretty intolerant world views at times are why he has a big audience. Securing both celebrity, tackling those taboo topics, and being a reasonably good host of conversation propelled him. Taking away the controversy puts him back in the group with nearly every other celebrity with a podcast.
They're not removing 99% of that stuff though, they're taking away only the most extreme bits, and maybe that'll get worse and worse over time, but frankly I think that the business model means he's screwed anyway. Signing for spotify naturally puts him outside of the mainstream conversation (which isn't paywalled) so his cultural relevance is going to slide, erroding his negotiating position. In tandem with that is Spotify's push into podcasts work he'll be just 1 voice amongst many that spotify now has sway over, if it doesn't work Spotify won't care to keep Rogan around since they'll drop that aspect of the business model. Either was, Rogan's negotiating position peaked the day of the deal he signed, and he's probably aware of that. Short of someone like Apple waking up and deciding to do content, no one will offer Rogan that deal again.
I worked for a tech company until recently that had allowed a relatively small group of activist employees to trigger HR policies that have been extremely detrimental to the morale and bottom line of the company.
Cowardly HR departments who don't recognize that, by and large, the activist employees are mediocre at best, rather than remotely productive employees, has made things worse. Also, companies like Spotify seem to spawn an odd lack of self-awareness amongst many employees about how utterly replaceable they actually are. Spotify is a video and audio streaming service. There isn't anything novel about that anymore, as proved by how rapidly HBO and Disney were able to roll out platforms which do the same thing.
Even worse, the HR don't recognize this either.
I can personally attest to the fact that the new CEO who was my last straw at my last gig care far more about his personal reputation at his Marin County country club than the bottom line for the shareholders. He acted accordingly, and the board of directors also care far more about their reputations.
> Cowardly HR departments who don't recognize that, by and large, the activist employees are mediocre at best, rather than remotely productive employees, has made things worse.
This feels like you're projecting your opinion of these people and their political beliefs (which it appears you disagree with) onto their entire character and acting as if your opinion of them is the reality of the situation. Are there activist employees that are poor performers? Probably. But it feels more like you're trying to paint an entire subset of employees negatively because you disagree with their political stances.
I'm simply pointing out that people who are into their actual work, as opposed to people who are into their work environments and cultures, are more productive. People obsess about managing time, but it's really about managing finite mental energy. Activist employees expend mental energy on social causes which don't benefit the bottom line of the company. I'm not saying they shouldn't be activists, I'm just saying they should do it on their own time, not at work and in the workplace. Exactly zero of the engineers at my company who were leading the charge on this stuff were standouts. Average performers at best, mostly sort of QA material and nothing more. I don't have real data, obviously, but my anecdotal, non-scientific survey of friends at Google, Amazon, Netflix, etc has shown a pattern of lower status employees being attracted to these activities.
I don't actually disagree with a lot of the goals of the activist employees at my former Boulder-based tech company. I simply disagree with them using the HR department to impose their views and beliefs onto the majority of employees who don't want it, in a way that becomes disruptive and distracting from making money. At the end of the quarter, the assholes in charge who wouldn't shut up about equity are still making hundreds of times what the average employee makes, and will fire anyone if the numbers aren't what they promised in the earnings forecast. The social justice initiatives seem to be designed to turn the rank and file against each other, instead of having them ask if their CEO is really worth 300 software engineers in value to the company.
I think the idea is like, if you're at a 10 person startup you don't have people like this because the company can't survive if people are spending their time on these issues. No one has time to make an initiative to rename whitelist to allowlist. It only starts occurring once you have enough corporate stability to nurture it.
> Or is it rather a few employees who, emboldened by cancel-culture, will toss their political agenda around the office while other employees, intimidated by cancel-culture, shy away from calling out the obvious BS?
This is it. The intimidation is real; look at what happened to James Damore.
What is your interpretation of what happened to James Damore? I would guess you and I have different opinions on what exactly took place, but I'm not sure either of us can presume that our opinions on those situations reflect the ground truth of what actually happened.
My interpretation was that Damore said that forcing 50/50 outcomes is discrimination, and more broadly the claim that all gender disparities are entirely caused by bias is not correct. He laid out specific discriminatory policies (representation OKRs, coaching candidates for interviews but only if they belong to underrepresented demographics) and asked the company to stop.
The depiction of the memo in the media was that he said women weren't as intelligent as men. Even though he explicitly called out that this is not what he was saying, he referred only to innate factors influencing preferences not intelligence.
YouTube always claims they're demonetizing videos for their advertisers. i.e companies threatening to either boycott advertising on the platform entirely, or ones who don't their products appear in videos with certain content.
According to this [1] Spotify makes 91% of their revenue and nearly 100% of their profits based on premium membership, not ads. I find it unlikely that they're messing with their users' interests to make advertisers happy that make up a rounding error in the profits.
What do you mean by "pushing"? Recommending him in your home page, with no option to disable the said recommendations? Or just hosting him at all on their platform?
Do you have the same opinion about YouTube, which has every political spectrum and its polar opposite on the same platform?
I mean “sponsoring” or “enabling” to a level beyond just existing in their catalog does.
I think it’s great that YouTube, Facebook, Twitter etc also ban Alex Jones yes. I see the risk of tech platforms acting as giant censors to be the smaller problem here.
Interesting. Then perhaps its higher ups in Spotify who might be afraid of getting accused of hosting content that isn't in favor with the MSM and ruling regime in the US?
At my own company it's very much this. As someone not directly impacted I would take a huge risk arguing against woke bullies for very little reward. Maybe when I'm on my way out I'll feel more comfortable sharing my opinion, until then I keep my mouth shut and cash the check. Write good code sometimes too..
I'm pretty sure I read corporations are supposed to try and act in the interest of their shareholders. The preferences of users, content creators, and staff are all secondary to shareholders.
> will toss their political agenda around the office while other employees, intimidated by cancel-culture, shy away from calling out the obvious BS
This is why it spreads so fast. You have one person who is loud, assertive and aggressive. And most people just want to avoid politics so they nod their heads.
Completely agree it's coming from employees and staff who believe their political ideology is the gospel and implementing cancel culture until there is no opposition is their goal. This largely stems from the bubble and lack of diversity in political ideology in the bay area and Europe.
So you believe that a podcast episode that is listened to once by a user is more likely to have an influence and be "problematic" than a song that is listened to daily and memorized?
What songs have caused a problem? I've been hearing how music is dangerous my whole life, Eminem, Marilyn Manson even Britney spears yet society hasn't fallen. People are unable to think critically about misleading arguments put out by manipulative internet talkers
Spotify employees seem to have no issue with songs about killing police, assaulting women, bashing gays etc. Just listen to a mainstream rapper like Eminem and there is plenty to get offended about, if they cared too.
A tame lyric for example:
“But I may fight for gay rights, especially if that dyke is more of a knockout than Janay Rice/Play nice? Bitch I’ll punch Lana Del Rey right in the face twice, like Ray Rice in broad daylight in the plain sight of the elevator surveillance/’Til her head is banging on the railing, then celebrate with the Ravens.”
I think plenty of people have tried to cancel Eminem already. Mainly nobody tries to do it lately because he's gone soft and nobody likes his new music. It's still technical but feels like a dad trying to hang out with the cool kids.
I really hope this continues until I no longer have to hear the words "I heard on the Joe Rogan podcast..." followed by some fully anti-science nonsense from the overly credulous. That show has a lot to answer for.
Look on the bright side: people are talking about (and thinking about) topics they might not normally be exposed to. The blame for lack of critical thought skills might fall more upon our parents and educators than Joe Rogan.
Rogan talking about vaccines causing autism, faked moon landings, 911 conspiracies and whatever other nonsense falls out of his empty head gives it enough of a whiff of respectability that other people give credence to this rubbish. He's dangerous and I find his popularity among the mostly very smart HN community completely baffling. David Icke isn't given the same pass, so why is Rogan?
Those sound like topics worthy of debate. Hopefully you take advantage of the opportunity to provide counterpoints to Rogan's "nonsense" when it presents itself.
What's "dangerous" is the intolerance of thought that permeates society right now. We seem to have lost the ability to listen and then respond.
I always thought Joe Rogan might be more of an Art Bell-type personality. Personality, not authority.
I would like to cancel my Spotify because of this. Does anyone know of any suitable alternative that isn't so heavy-handed with moderation and censorship? I found an app (https://freeyourmusic.com/) that lets you transfer playlists between different music services, but I am not sure who the 'least evil' provider is.
I don't know why Spotify removes Joe Rogan episodes, but keeps homophobic songs like "Where the hood at" (particularly relevant today) on the platform. Pretty sure that song is far worse than anything said on Rogan.
I guess that song is older than Rogan's podcast episodes, and music isn't usually as serious as a podcast. But still kinda funny they remove Joe Rogan episodes, but allows songs talking about how they won't be friend with gay people.
It's part of their deal. Nothing to see here.