On February 5, 2022, the world woke up to the news that several episodes of Joe Rogan's podcast had disappeared from Spotify without a trace. The disappearance came days after the controversy between Neil Young, Joe Rogan and Spotify. However, from The Verge they report that, on this occasion, COVID-19 has nothing to do with it. Joe Rogan finds himself in the eye of the storm again, but this time it is due to the use of racial slurs in several episodes of his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience.
According to the aforementioned medium, Spotify would have removed the content after the Grammy-winning singer, India Arie, uploaded some clips that showed Joe Rogan pronouncing the repudiable “N-word”. At the same time, India Arie removed her music from the platform, while she urged users to remove Spotify from their mobile devices.
Now, it has been the same CEO of Spotify, Daniel Ek, who has confirmed the withdrawal of Rogan's content from the platform. Ek comments on his statement that Rogan's words “do not represent the values of this company.” However, for Daniel Ek this is not reason enough to break his contract with the podcaster; and it is that the CEO does not believe that “silencing Joe is the answer”.
We should have clear lines around content and take action when they cross, but overriding voices is a slippery slope. More generally, it is critical thinking and open debate that drive real and necessary progress.
Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify In addition, Daniel Ek reiterates that Spotify is a platform, so it is not dedicated to the editorial control of its content. However, he admits that the contract between Joe Rogan and the company could lead to confusion in this section.
As a damage control campaign, Daniel Ek announces that Spotify will be offering a total of 100 million dollars for “licensing, development and marketing of music and other sound content”; created by people belonging to historically marginalized groups.
Joe Rogan has apologized for the use of racist language
Joe Rogan / Joe Rogan Shortly after India Arie uploaded the compilation of Joe Rogan uttering racist language, the podcaster has decided to address the matter with an apology. In a six-minute video posted on his Instagram account, Rogan offers his “most sincere and humble apologies.”
In addition, he assures that it has been “the most regrettable and shameful thing” that he has had to express publicly. However, he claims that these clips were taken “out of context”; and that at the time of using this word she was talking about other comedians who had used it in the past
I know that for most people, there is no context in which a white person could say that word, let alone publicly on a podcast, and now I agree with that. Instead of saying the “N” word, I just said the word. I thought as long as it was in context, people would understand what I was doing.
Joe Rogan from Instagram On the other hand, both Joe Rogan and Spotify are in full controversy over the anti-vaccine content in the former's podcast. This has led to multiple artists removing their music from the platform. To this, Spotify has assured that it will take measures to inform users of the veracity of any podcast that talks about COVID-19. However, the company assures that it will not take any further action in this regard, so its contract with Rogan will continue until further notice.
