(Headline USA) Spotify removed classic rocker Neil Young’s music from its platform this week after the musician demanded that the company choose between him or popular podcaster Joe Rogan.
“We want all the world’s music and audio content to be available to Spotify users. With that comes great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom for creators,” a Spotify spokesman told the Washington Post in a statement.
“We have detailed content policies in place and we’ve removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to covid-19 since the start of the pandemic. We regret Neil’s decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon,” the statement concluded.
The announcement came just a couple of days after Young gave Spotify an ultimatum, saying the company could either de-platform Rogan permanently or remove Young’s music from its website. Young claimed Rogan was “spreading fake information about vaccines – potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them.”
“They can have Neil Young or Rogan. Not both,” he said.
Rogan’s podcast attracts nearly 11 million listeners per episode and was Spotify’s most popular podcast globally in 2021.
Leftists like Young frequently complain about Rogan because he invites guests to discuss controversial topics and often questions the mainstream narrative on his show. Recently, for example, he posted an episode with epidemiologist Dr. Robert Malone, who says he helped create the mRNA technology used in two of the COVID-19 vaccines. During their conversation, Malone blasted COVID policies and said it is immoral for governments to mandate the vaccines.
“Our government is out of control on this and they are lawless,” the scientist argued.
“They completely disregard bioethics, they completely disregard the federal common rule, they have broken all the rules that I know of that I’ve been trained on for years and years,” he said on the Rogan podcast. “These mandates of an experimental vaccine are explicitly illegal.”
