
Among their complaints are Rogan’s promotion of the anti-parasitic ivermectin to treat COVID-19 (a use neither approved by the Federal Drug Administration nor backed by scientific evidence) and a guest appearance by the controversial vaccine skeptic Dr. Two-hundred and seventy health care professionals also recently sent an open letter to Spotify urging the company to address misinformation on Rogan’s show. “I realized I could not continue to support Spotify’s life-threatening misinformation to the music-loving public.” Young said Spotify listeners are being misinformed and endangered, and that artists are supporting Spotify by hosting their music there.

“Most of the listeners hearing the unfactual, misleading and false COVID information on Spotify are 24 years old, impressionable and easy to swing to the wrong side of the truth.”

“Spotify has recently become a very damaging force via its public misinformation and lies about COVID,” Young wrote in a letter on his website Wednesday. On Thursday, “Delete Spotify” trended on Twitter in response to the removal, which happened after Young gave the company an ultimatum: remove his music or remove Joe Rogan’s podcast. In the staff memo, Ek said Spotify had talked with Rogan about his “history of using some racially insensitive language” and that Rogan “chose to remove a number of episodes from Spotify.Stay on top of breaking news and weather with the FOX8 mobile app. I haven’t said it in years,” Rogan said.Īfter the video circulated and Rogan issued his apology, media reports claimed that Spotify had quietly removed around 70 episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience. “I know that to most people, there’s no context where a white person is ever allowed to say that word, never mind publicly on a podcast, and I agree with that now.

Rogan notes that the video compiles clips that were taken out of context and recorded over a 12-year period, but that it “looks fucking horrible, even to me.” Rogan later apologized on his own Instagram video, saying the video is the “most regretful and shameful thing” he has ever had to address. The latest furor surrounding Spotify’s relationship with Rogan blew up over the weekend after singer India Arie shared a compilation video on her Instagram account of Rogan saying the N-word on air over 20 times.

“There are no words I can say to adequately convey how deeply sorry I am for the way The Joe Rogan Experience controversy continues to impact each of you,” Ek said to staff in a memo, adding that Rogan’s “incredibly hurtful” use of the racial slur did “not represent the values of this company.”
