Spotify Responds to COVID Misinformation Controversy, Rogan Offers Apology

NEW YORK —Bowing to pressure from critics who claim it has contributed to the spread of COVID and vaccine misinformation, Spotify announced Sunday it plans to add warning labels to content that blurs the line between truth and fiction.

“You’ve had a lot of questions over the last few days about our platform policies and the lines we have drawn between what is acceptable and what is not,” Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said in a blog posted to the company’s website Sunday.

“We have had rules in place for many years but admittedly, we haven’t been transparent around the policies that guide our content more broadly. This, in turn, led to questions around their application to serious issues including COVID-19,” he said.

“Based on the feedback over the last several weeks, it’s become clear to me that we have an obligation to do more to provide balance and access to widely-accepted information from the medical and scientific communities guiding us through this unprecedented time. These issues are incredibly complex,” Ek added.

Ek’s statement came as the global content platform faced growing criticism over broadcasts that assist in the spreading of misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccinations. The calls for boycotts rose to an entirely different dimension in recent days after a number of recording artists, beginning with Neil Young and Joni Mitchell demanded their music be removed from Spotify.

The focus of their displeasure is the popular podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience” on which the host, actor/comedian Joe Rogan often books guests with provocative views on climate, gender, race and policing and COVID-19 policy.

Rogan’s program is currently the most listened to podcast on the audio streaming service. In fact, the show is so popular that Rogan signed a $100 million deal in May 2020, giving Spotify exclusive distribution rights.

The episode that reportedly inspired Neil Young to effectively declare war on the platform featured Dr. Peter McCullough and Dr. Robert Malone, both of whom made multiple unsubstantiated claims related to the COVID-19 pandemic on the podcast.

Shortly after Spotify responded to the controversy on Sunday, Rogan took to Instagram to give his side of the story and apologize to the platform for the backlash his podcast caused.

“These podcasts are very strange because they’re just conversations,” Rogan said in the nearly 10-minute video. “Oftentimes I have no idea what I’m going to talk about until I sit down and talk to people. 

“And that’s why some of my ideas are not that prepared or fleshed out because I’m literally having them in real time, but I do my best and they’re just conversations, and I think that’s also the appeal of the show,” he said. “It’s one of the things that makes it interesting. So I want to thank Spotify for being so supportive during this time, and I’m very sorry that this is happening to them and that they’re taking so much heat from it.”

Ek’s statement did not single out Rogan or his podcast, the CEO offering that “there are plenty of individuals and views on Spotify that I disagree with strongly,” but he added “it is important to me that we don’t take on the position of being content censor.”

The company’s new content advisory will be attached to any podcast episode that includes a discussion about COVID-19. It will direct listeners to a dedicated COVID-19 Hub, a resource Ek praised will provide “easy access to data-driven facts, up-to-date information as shared by scientists, physicians, academics and public health authorities around the world, as well as links to trusted sources.” 

“This new effort to combat misinformation will roll out to countries around the world in the coming days. To our knowledge, this content advisory is the first of its kind by a major podcast platform,” Ek added. 

Young demanded his music be removed from the Spotify platform last Wednesday in a statement released on his website.

“Spotify has recently become a very damaging force via its public misinformation and lies about COVID,” Young wrote. “I first learned of this problem by reading that 200-plus doctors had joined forces, taking on the dangerous life-threatening COVID falsehoods found in Spotify programming.”

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and at https://twitter.com/DanMcCue.