spotify joe rogan experiencehendrix policypress

If Spotify performed its due diligence, it would enable the platform to act responsibly by understanding, identifying, and addressing the human rights risks associated with its content governance practices.Īfter the recent backlash, the streaming giant announced it would add advisory labels to podcast episodes and invest 100 million USD back into the licensing, development, and marketing of music and audio content from historically marginalized groups. By playing the role of both producer and broadcaster, and profiting from every episode, Spotify has a responsibility for what content it amplifies. Spotify needs to exercise due diligenceĬontent in The Joe Rogan Experience is acquired and produced - not to mention hosted - exclusively by Spotify, so the company must conduct due diligence over content it purchased. The bare minimum the company can do? Align with basic human rights principles, starting with due diligence.

This is incredibly dangerous, and there are serious human rights implications tied to Spotify’s decisions. When Rogan makes false claims that the COVID vaccines alter DNA and that the health risks for young people are greater from the vaccine than from the virus itself, it undermines people’s ability to arrive at well-informed opinions. But Spotify’s problems are much bigger than Joe Rogan, and censorship is not the answer. What we need is for the world’s largest audio platform to take responsibility for the words it pays to produce, host, and promote. With a listenership upwards of 400 million, what is said on the show has far-reaching consequences.

Now, The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, produced exclusively by Spotify, has firmly landed itself in the spotlight once more, this time for spreading dangerous COVID-19 misinformation and endangering public health, and the hosts’ use of harmful racial slurs. He said it wouldn’t happen again - then it did. “I fucked up.” Last year, Joe Rogan publicly admitted to spreading misinformation on his podcast, acknowledging he did not bother to undertake basic fact-checking before leaning into the mic. This op-ed originally appeared in Thomson Reuters Foundation News.

Spotify joe rogan experiencehendrix policypress