Spotify CEO Daniel Ek defended to his employees the exclusivity agreement reached with controversial host Joe Rogan, which he considers crucial for his streaming service, while stressing that he disagrees with the latter on “lots of things”.
These comments from the boss of Spotify were published Thursday when the action continued to unscrew on Wall Street, in the wake of forecasts deemed disappointing, but also the controversy around the podcast of Joe Rogan, accused by some, including many artists including Neil Young, misinformation about Covid.
>> Covid-19: we explain the controversy between Neil Young and the Spotify platform
Daniel Ek addressed his employees “disappointed or angry” against the words of Joe Rogan, assuring that Spotify had signed an exclusive contract – worth an estimated 100 million dollars -, the platform did not have any “editorial control” on the podcast.
“There are a lot of things Joe Rogan says that I strongly disagree with and find very offensive”he said, according to a transcript of the meeting published by the site The Verge (in English).
The podcast has 11 million subscribers, making it the global number one for the platform. There is currently no question of deprogramming Joe Rogan’s talk show. “A little over a year ago, Joe wasn’t even on our platform, but despite that, it’s long been one of Spotify’s most sought-after podcasts”said Daniel Ek.
“We do not validate his guests in advance and we have his content when he publishes it (…) If this content violates our rules, we implement the appropriate actions”, continues the founder of Spotify, stressing that ‘”there are a number of Joe Rogan episodes that you won’t find on Spotify” for this reason.
Joe Rogan is accused of discouraging vaccination among young people and pushing the use of an unauthorized treatment, ivermectin, against the coronavirus. More than 200 American health professionals had recently sounded the alarm after he had received on his show a doctor much appreciated by anti-vaccines, Robert Malone.
In an attempt to put out the fire, Spotify has announced measures such as the introduction, in all its podcasts evoking the Covid, of links which will guide its users to factual and scientifically sourced information.
There’s been a lot of conversation about information regarding COVID-19 on Spotify. We’ve heard the criticism and we’re implementing changes to help combat misinformation. https://t.co/ic8jfR1RNR
— Daniel Ek (@eldsjal) January 30, 2022
Will this be enough to calm the concern of Spotify employees and the anger of artists? American-Canadian singer Neil Young protested by demanding that Spotify remove all his music, quickly joined by his former accomplices Crosby, Stills and Nash, as well as singer Joni Mitchell, resulting in a movement to unsubscribe from Spotify on social networks.