Spotify Removes Neil Young's Music After He Objects To Joe Rogan's Podcast (npr.org) 449
Spotify has removed famed singer-songwriter Neil Young's recordings from its streaming platform. From a report: On Monday, Young had briefly posted an open letter on his own website, asking his management and record label to remove his music from the streaming giant, as a protest against the platform's distribution of podcaster Joe Rogan. Rogan has been widely criticized for spreading misinformation about coronavirus vaccines on his podcast, which is now distributed exclusively on Spotify. Late Wednesday, the musician posted two lengthy statements on his website, one addressing the catalyst of his request and the other thanking his industry partners. In the first, he wrote in part: "I first learned of this problem by reading that 200-plus doctors had joined forces, taking on the dangerous life-threatening COVID falsehoods found in Spotify programming. Most of the listeners hearing the unfactual, misleading and false COVID information of Spotify are 24 years old, impressionable and easy to swing to the wrong side of the truth. These young people believe Spotify would never present grossly unfactual information. They unfortunately are wrong. I knew I had to try to point that out."
As of last week, more than 1,000 doctors, scientists and health professionals had signed that open letter to Spotify. According to Rolling Stone, Young's original request on Monday, which was addressed to his manager and an executive at Warner Music Group, read in part: "I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines -- potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them ... They can have Rogan or Young. Not both." The letter was quickly removed from Young's website. Spotify's scrubbing of Young from its service was first reported on Wednesday afternoon by The Wall Street Journal. His removal from the streaming platform makes him one of the most popular musical artists not to appear on Spotify, where his songs have garnered hundreds of millions of streams.
As of last week, more than 1,000 doctors, scientists and health professionals had signed that open letter to Spotify. According to Rolling Stone, Young's original request on Monday, which was addressed to his manager and an executive at Warner Music Group, read in part: "I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines -- potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them ... They can have Rogan or Young. Not both." The letter was quickly removed from Young's website. Spotify's scrubbing of Young from its service was first reported on Wednesday afternoon by The Wall Street Journal. His removal from the streaming platform makes him one of the most popular musical artists not to appear on Spotify, where his songs have garnered hundreds of millions of streams.
Sounds like a win for everyone but us (Score:4, Insightful)
Rogan gets cred because Young lost. Young loses no appreciable revenue, gets cred because he took a stand. Spotify wins regardless since they hardly pay when they play.
Re: (Score:2)
The irony here is that Young sold his catalog years ago, he doesn't even own his own songs any more. One of the people he tried to sell it to was.... wait for it.... Donald Trump.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know what the pay scheme is for Spotify and how much actually goes to Young but if his songs are garnering "hundreds of millions of streams" I would say he is losing an appreciable revenue stream. I guess if he is only getting $0.0001 per stream it might not be all that significant to him but I would still consider that a rather significant amount.
Re: (Score:2)
Young isn't after cred (Score:3, Insightful)
Spotify could fix this _and_ keep Rogan just by requiring a fact checker on air to provide another point of view. But they don't want facts messing with Rogan's formula.
They don't (Score:4, Insightful)
And as usual with large corporations, profits over people. That's not what bothers me, what bothers me is the number of folks not railing against it. We lost 2400 yesterday. About a 1/4 were under 65. Plenty of life left.
Re: (Score:3)
And therein lies the problem with streaming... (Score:2)
Let's say you're a huge Neil Young fan and love listening to him on Spotify. Suddenly because of this ridiculous political crap that has nothing to do with the music, you can't listen to him anymore without paying more money (unless you want to go the piracy route).
And I say this FULLY AGREEING with Neil Young's opinion on the issue. It just shouldn't affect people's ability to listen to his music.
Streaming was a mistake. Any little petty squabble between rights holders and suddenly your favorite music is h
Re: (Score:3)
Let's say you're a huge Neil Young fan and love listening to him on Spotify. Suddenly because of this ridiculous political crap that has nothing to do with the music, you can't listen to him anymore without paying more money
Should have bought the albums then.
And I say this FULLY AGREEING with Neil Young's opinion on the issue. It just shouldn't affect people's ability to listen to his music.
So you fully agree, but not completely?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I cancelled Spotify a long time ago and not over politics.
If I like an artist, I'll buy a license their music in the form of an MP3 and I'm good to go.
Streaming was a big fat waste of money for me. It caused me to over-consume and find too much "enjoyment" from that form of consumption.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm still mad at Spotify for forcing me to subscribe to their service to listen to their podcasts. They should freely available on any podcast platform. That's how podcasts were supposed to work, anybody with an RSS feed reader can access them.
Re: And therein lies the problem with streaming... (Score:2)
Nobody forces you to subscribe to Spotify to listen to their podcasts.
Go listen to something else.
Re: (Score:2)
Or, you can switch to Pandora or 1.FM and listen to him there. It's not like Spotify has a monopoly on streaming music on the Internet.
Re: And therein lies the problem with streaming... (Score:2)
Yeah. It's not like there isn't plenty of OTHER stuff to listen to.
First world problems....
Re:And therein lies the problem with streaming... (Score:5, Insightful)
you can't listen to him anymore without paying more money
Neil Young just happens to OWN his own streaming service called NYA (Neil Young Archives), which is a followup service after his failed Pono [wikipedia.org]. So he's been trying to get a streaming service off the ground for years now to compete with the likes of Spotify (which is literally the competition responsible for the failure of Pono).
So let's see how strategic this move was...
Gets Neil Young publicity and in the news (and on Slashdot). Check.
Forces his fans to use his own streaming service without looking like he's motivated by greed. Check.
Brings attention to his own personal beliefs that everyone should be vaccinated. Check.
He'd be a fool NOT to have pulled this stunt.
You kinda missed something there (Score:3)
Maybe I'm just too old, but I remember when MP3.com was a serious threat to the RIAA because artists were bypassing the record companies and putting their music out themselves. I remember the RIAA mercilessly crushing MP3.com and transforming it from a great way to find new music to shitty a internet radio and pay service. I remember when we did
Re:And therein lies the problem with streaming... (Score:5, Insightful)
Quote: "... because of this ridiculous political crap ..."
Please, oh God, enlighten me how fighting against people spreading misinformation about a deadly/highly contagious disease is not a fighting against "biological warfare" but "political crap".
Re: (Score:2)
Except that can't really happen because Neil Young's music has ALWAYS been political crap.
The question is who is counter culture today Rogan or Young - I would say Rogan, but if buy into the messages Young has sent throughout his career than your response should be to stand up the the man and his money and cancel your stupid Spotify account! Except people won't and Spotify knows it, because deep down most Young audience knows he was full of shit and the reason their lives are comfortable enough they can af
Re: (Score:3)
Let's say you're a huge Neil Young fan
Do those exist?
Re: And therein lies the problem with streaming... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Let's say you're a huge Neil Young fan and love listening to him on Spotify. Suddenly because of this ridiculous political crap that has nothing to do with the music, you can't listen to him anymore without paying more money (unless you want to go the piracy route).
And I say this FULLY AGREEING with Neil Young's opinion on the issue. It just shouldn't affect people's ability to listen to his music.
Streaming was a mistake. Any little petty squabble between rights holders and suddenly your favorite music is harder to listen to.
You're not the first to call him out on his "ridiculous political crap", perhaps the song Sweet Home Alabama is familiar? He also had polio as a kid and feels strongly about vaccines. I'm not a Neil Young fan but believe it would be completely out of character if he didn't put his beliefs into action as he did when he started his own download service because he dislikes "lossy" audio. (I don’t know why he was on Spotify to begin with, perhaps an actual fan could fill me in?)
Re: And therein lies the problem with streaming... (Score:2)
Um, what? Bizarre headline (Score:4, Insightful)
Young asked Spotify to remove his music, because he was too pure and right to be there on the same platform with Rogan.
Spotify complied with his request.
Whats the problem?
The story behind the story... (Score:3)
Neil Young has his own streaming service. Presumably he is getting most or all of the revenue vs. whatever Spotify gives him. So has a financial inventive to have people leave Spotify to listen to his music. Perhaps it has more to do with that than anything Rogan is doing. Just saying.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Ehn, people aren't going to be joining his service any time soon, especially since Apple Music does lossless as part of their normal subscription, which was always Young's complaint and caused him to start his own service. I don't think he's going to be making more money this way. Or at least, not a lot more money; he's an artist that may literally be able to make it up in volume on a platform as big as Spotify, despite the fact that they have by far the worst per-stream rate of the major players.
Anyway, if
OMG (Score:5, Funny)
Neil Young stands to lose dozens, maybe hundreds of dollars.
k.
Somebody on Arss Technica did the math (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm sure he never once thought they would take Joe Rogan off the air but the point is to draw attention to the vaccine misinformation and rogan's unwillingness to have fact checkers on or even someone who disagrees with h
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't understand why we have reached a point where we need to have thought police out there.
It's the natural result of compromising education [cnn.com].
What does that have to do (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Somebody on Arss Technica did the math (Score:4, Insightful)
You can’t get more balanced than that.
'Balanced' does not mean that you should give every opinion the same treatment.
Anyway, nothing Rogan does is balanced. He's usually going for the things that dumb people like to speculate about because they read about it on the internet.
Are the fact checkers like that vegan lion (Score:4, Insightful)
Go look up when Sanjay Gupta was on his show and see what I mean. The whole time Dr Gupta was walking on eggshells trying not to upset Rogan, and it was pretty clear he was afraid of Rogan ending the interview and storming off like a petulant child. Meanwhile Rogan let's Robert Malone on to spew nonsense unchallenged for as long as he wants.
It's like when Fox News used to have that token liberal (Combs?) that everyone made fun of. It was so obviously an act. Fox dropped the act decades ago, Rogan won't be far behind.
I don't normally listen to Rogan (Score:4, Insightful)
The trouble with Rogan is he's a self professed idiot. He has made being an idiot OK. In the past if you had beliefs that were contrary to experts and the popular consensus you'd either take time to get your arguments straight and make a real effort to learn the subject, or you'd shut the hell up. Rogan and others like him make it OK to blurt out incredibly stupid crap and just say "well I'm just a dummy" to write it off without being called out on it.
What it does (and you're doing it yourself) is shift the burden of proof. In the past we'd demand numbskulls like Rogan plead their case, and laugh at them when they failed. Now it's up to the sane and intelligent to methodically prove him wrong, which as anyone with a brain knows takes far longer and is far more effort. An idiot can spout 100 falsehoods in under a minute but to refute them can take hours.
And then there's you, an obvious troll enjoying all this and clueless at how it's going to eventually bite you in the ass. Ah to be young again... and kinda dumb.
Re:Somebody on Arss Technica did the math (Score:5, Informative)
Joe Rogan actually had fact checkers on his podcast and people with completely opposite opinions. You canâ(TM)t get more balanced than that.
This is like insisting CNN isn't balanced because they don't bring on a flat-earther as a counter opinon every time they talk about "global" news.
It's not "balance" to present known misinformation plus fact checkers.
Bring it on! (Score:3)
> This is like insisting CNN isn't balanced because they don't bring on a flat-earther as a counter opinion...
I want to see that, actually, at least for the entertainment value.
CNN: "So you are saying every astronaut is bribed to lie?"
Flattie: "No, they are screened for their opinion before they are allowed to be astronauts. NASA can be very selective."
CNN: "Do you know if any astronaut candidate who was rejected for their flatness opinion?"
Flattie: "I was. See, I even have the letter here."
CNN: "Okay, b
Re: (Score:3)
This is sort of true for other positions Rogan holds but not when it comes to this vaccine.
I've been listening to his podcast for quite some time. For the last year the pattern I've seen is a lot of pushback against guests who promote the vaccine and call out pseudoscience. These guests also don't get invited back. He allows people like Malone, Weinstein and Pierre Kory to spread nonsense without any fact checking. This is bad enough but I don't think he's gone through an entire podcast without going on
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure he never once thought they would take Joe Rogan off the air but the point is to draw attention to the vaccine misinformation and rogan's unwillingness to have fact checkers on or even someone who disagrees with his stance on vaccines.
Neil didn't even say what he objected to in particular. Just some vague handwaving stuff.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure he never once thought they would take Joe Rogan off the air but the point is to draw attention to the vaccine misinformation and rogan's unwillingness to have fact checkers on or even someone who disagrees with his stance on vaccines.
Neil didn't even say what he objected to in particular. Just some vague handwaving stuff.
I doubt he even knows what he's objecting too,
Re: (Score:2)
there is literally hours of coverage of Rogan spreading borderline and outright lies
Give the top three lies he told. Or the top one lie.
Re:Rogan has been pushing vaccine misinformation (Score:5, Informative)
Sure, I'll bite.
Downplaying Covid: "It's no worse than the flu."
According to the CDC, flu killed 20 thousand people in the US in 2020. Covid killed 345 thousand.
Discouraging vaccination: "if you're like 21 years old, and you say to me, 'Should I get vaccinated?' I'll go no.'"
Even if Covid didn't kill young people (which it totally can), having a large pool of unvaccinated incubators helps keep the pandemic going.
Promoting ivermectin: "This doctor was saying ivermectin is 99 percent effective intreating Covid, but you don't hear about it because you can't fund vaccines when it's an effective treatment."
Of the 26 major trials of the drug, a third have serious errors or signs of potential fraud. None of the rest show convincing evidence of ivermectin's effectiveness.
To be fair, I don't regard what Rogan does as lying, per se. He frequently uses the dodge "I don't know if this guy is right or wrong. I'm just asking questions." The problem isn't lying, it's the megaphone he's giving to quacks and frauds.
Re: (Score:2)
no modern protest music (Score:5, Insightful)
Musicians from Neil Young's generation took a stand and had something to say through music. Seems like there is no modern protest movement, modern musicians seem to be about the money and fame (if they can find it) and have really nothing to say. Whether I agree with Neil or not, I can appreciate Neil's passion.
It's all stupidity... (Score:5, Insightful)
Young's stance on this is reflective of a larger issue in our society:
We're at the point where a significant portion of the American public raise every disagreement or issue to the level of either "Nazi's at the front door" or "A complete constitutional meltdown".
This is insanity. And it isn't partisan in it's nature.
The first issue is the idea of ideology. We could do well to not have that. You know... those knee jerk absolutes pulled out in the press and general discourse (Socialism!!! Fascism!! ad nauseum). But once politics becomes religious in nature it almost always follows that a massive conflict has to ensue- with enough suffering for the participants to ask "Is this really worth it?"
Then add in the fact that ideologies are inherently incomplete because they cannot solve all problems. So when they are applied it leads to more conflict over areas in which they have failed.
Then there's actual religion. Like the political counterpart they have "dogma" which dictates what is "right or wrong". The dogmas are incomplete, in dispute, and the institutions promoting them do not even agree on what they are.
Then.... there's the press. It's for profit. The news that is amplified is news which gets the most viewers. Do the math there. How much outrage can be generated? How much news contains nuanced and complicated analysis of real issues?
Add in a weak educational system....
And the output of this massive failure of a society is a large number of confused, ignorant, outraged, and materialistic citizens who have raised disagreements to the level of Absolute Moral/Dogmatic/Ideological Absolutes- give those idiot social media and see what you get.
Congratulations Mr. Young: you have declared victory and departed the field- while allowing a brain damaged cage fighting comedian to take moral high ground. All while damaging your brand which has a great deal of value to society.
Yup... we all won here. Assuming we find it entertaining. Are we not entertained?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Nice example of what the OP was talking about. Thank you.
Maybe we should all stop drawing so many lines in the sand. Take a deep breath and maybe go for a walk in the park or something.
Wrong. We cannot allow people to reject reality and substitute their own or we end up with the modern Republican Party. I don't just live near "durty libs" man. I even have people in my family who are conservative. Many believe, amongst other things, that the vaccine really is a conspiracy. They also believe the Finnish government is genetically manipulating the population. That the pandemic was really a plan by the ebil left-wing cabal. Others really do say they believe Jan 6th was all an FBI plot. Most o
so 1st amendment for Neil, not for Joe (Score:2)
He apparently believes strongly in censoring opinions with which he does not agree..., but would he then acquiesce to censorship of his own music if people did not like the message.
Not a Slashdot Story (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's the original open letter to Spotify (Score:4, Informative)
Tons of comments here from folks that clearly never took the time to read the actual letter.The letter is not that long or hard to read, and although the list of names is long, it is also painfully obvious whether someone backing this letter likely had any relevant expertise or not.
The letter: https://spotifyopenletter.word... [wordpress.com]
I'm astonished and saddened that so many folks would have such loud-but-clueless reactions to this letter without even bothering to casually scan the contents.
Re:The actual objection (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: The actual objection (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: The actual objection (Score:5, Insightful)
What the cancel culture tries to do today, censoring the internet
It's not cancel culture, it's consequence(s) culture.
You can still say whatever the hell you want, you just have to be prepared to accept the consequences for what you say. Alex Jones recently being sued for libel is the most recent example. No government entity censored Alex Jones, but he faced the consequences of what he said.
Re: (Score:3)
Totally agree, but one slight nuance. I think that it is 100% proper and within Young's right to remove his music from a platform that also sponsors false and misleading information about a global pandemic from individuals who are uniformed and speaking from an ideological position. Where I disagree with Young is that it was inappropriate to have given Spotify an ultimatum ("He goes, or I go.")
My opinion is that Young should simply have told Spotify he wants his music down, why he wants his music taken down
Re: The actual objection (Score:5, Informative)
Joe Rogan is the man who said he wasn't going to eat hamburgers because he was trying to cut down on consuming pork.
Snopes [snopes.com] rates that as False.
If you're wrong, you are wrong.
You are wrong.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The actual objection (Score:4, Insightful)
So, we should ignore the best the CDC and Fauci know in favor of some guy with no experience in any relevant field?
He says things that fire up "the base", but are they based on anything factual?
Yes, science advances, what we thought was true yesterday might not be quite right tomorrow.
Do we stop trying and devolve into mindless hand-waving political point scoring, or do we do the best we can with what we know?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you say something that can be proven false, you're not wrong, it's just a different opinion??
Neil Young did not try to prove Joe Rogan's statements to be false. He tried to shut him up.
Re: (Score:3)
If you say something that can be proven false, you're not wrong, it's just a different opinion??
Neil Young did not try to prove Joe Rogan's statements to be false. He tried to shut him up.
Neil Young didn't do that either. The only person Neil Young "shut up" was himself. He asked to remove his own stuff, he didn't demand Spotify remove Joe Rogan.
Re:The actual objection (Score:4, Insightful)
He tried to shut him up.
False. He simply took the profits from his own work away from Rogan's enablers, as a punishment.
Re: (Score:3)
You mean like all those Republican school boards censoring books? Like the one about the Holocaust [nytimes.com]? You're right. We can't have rational discourse where censorship is rampant.
Slow your roll there, chief. The school board in question removed the book in question from the middle school because they decided that some of what was in said book was inappropriate for eight graders. One of the commissioners who voted to remove the book praised the book, citing the importance of what it covered, but that ultimately a few issues (nudity, a frank conversation about sex) made them believe that it should be removed from the middle school. The board also talked about possibly redacting tho
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
No., he did not call for Rogan to be removed or silenced.
He asked for his own songs to be removed.
This is exactly the opposite of what you have said.
Re:The actual objection (Score:5, Informative)
No., he did not call for Rogan to be removed or silenced.
He asked for his own songs to be removed.
This is exactly the opposite of what you have said.
Of course he did. This is from his letter:
“I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform,” he continued. “They can have [Joe] Rogan or Young. Not both.”
“With an estimated 11 million listeners per episode, JRE, which is hosted exclusively on Spotify, is the world’s largest podcast and has tremendous influence,” the letter reads. “Spotify has a responsibility to mitigate the spread of misinformation on its platform, though the company presently has no misinformation policy.”
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
It's good he is taking a standard against some of the misinformation that Rogan has put out there lately. When he got COVID last year he started taking monoclonal antibodies, azithromycin, a vitamin drip, and Ivermectin (horse de-wormer).
Joe Rogan is not a doctor, clearly.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
"What kind of "doctor" prescribes horse de-wormer for COVID?""
The kind of doctor that can read and knows Ivermectin isn't just a horse dewormer.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
the only reason to keep saying he took horse dewormer is to spread actual misinformation.
Re: (Score:3)
You are repeating misinformation that was pushed by CNN, and was debunked by their very own medical guy Dr Sanjay Gupta on Rogan's show.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/... [foxnews.com]
Joe Rogan took a prescribed medicine, that is also used as a horse de-wormer, he never took horse de-wormer which is packaged as a liquid, not a pill.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A The COVID19 virus is not a parasitic.
That's why Ivermectin doesn't work for COVID19.
Re: (Score:3)
As above, it may have antiviral properties, and may do all you say, but the clinical trials have lead anyone with experience to believe it is terribly effective with covid.
A doctor should be the one making medical recommendations, not a guy in a pod cast?
Why is he doing so?
I suspect Joe is the one spreading misinformation.
Re: (Score:3)
Which do you use to get your car fixed, an ASE certified mechanic working in a service facility which has proper tools and training and insurance, or some yahoo on a forum somewhere who suffers no consequence for being wrong ( or right ) and is only in it for "the glory"?
If a competent medical professional prescribes it, sure, go for it.
Why is it *so* darned important that Joe discuss stuff he is not competent to discuss?
The whole thing is predicated on making "the base" mad. Drip drip drip of fear changin
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But it is clear that nobody calling ivermectin 'horse dewormer' is intellectually honest in the slightest, and those that do are probably not worth engaging with.
Re:The actual objection (Score:5, Insightful)
I completely agree with you (except for the people who could not get human-pills so they took animal-paste; they took horse-dewormer with no clear dosage and random extra ingredients, yum).
By the same token, people who call ivermectin "safe for humans" are equally intellectually dishonest. Ivermectin schedules include dosage for 1-2 days once ever (if you live in an area without common parasites) or once every 3-12 months (if you live in a parasite-paradise). We have never tested ivermectin in the schedules needed for (theoretically) treating COVID for safety, and certainly not for long-term effects.
Anyone who is nervous about long-term vaccine effects should be peeing-their-pants-terrified about long-term ivermectin effects.
Re: (Score:3)
So by this logic, since disease A is cured by solution B, then disease C MUST by cured by solution B...?
How do you equate intestinal parasites with covid?
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The actual objection (Score:5, Informative)
On his April 23, 2021 show, Rogan encouraged young people not to get vaccinated.
"[I]f you're a healthy person, and you're exercising all the time, and you're young, and youâ(TM)re eating well, like, I don't think you need to worry about this."
https://www.mediamatters.org/j... [mediamatters.org]
Fauci called him out on it: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/2... [cnbc.com]
More over, he gives a platform to other people who give extremely bad medical advice, and doesn't challenge them very much.
Re:The actual objection (Score:5, Insightful)
telling people his opinion that he thinks they dont need to worry about it, is entirely different than encouraging anyone of anything.
So you'd be fine if he voiced an opinion that US ethnic minorities are inferior to Whites? I mean, it'd be just his opinion and maybe he'd even state on his show that he's not a geneticist to boot.
Going by your logic all sorts of ugly falsehoods can be very easily spread.
Re: (Score:3)
People are in an uproar simply because he interviews who ever he wants. In other words, we get information from ALL sources, instead of the currently 'approved' ones.
That's not true.
He does indeed interviews who he wants, but he has a pretty strong bias for people who straddle the line between fact and fantasy.
You for sure don't get ALL the sources, you get a specific Rogan selection of sources.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Neil Young isn't a doctor, either. So you have your choice of which clueless celebrity you want to believe. Not that I recommend making your medical decisions based on the opinions of clueless celebrities.
Re:The actual objection (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The actual objection (Score:5, Insightful)
It is quite clear you don't know who Neil Young is or you would not jump to this baseless conclusion about his character or motive. He is protesting the damage and death that Joe Rogan is doing in the name of making stupid money. Neil Young does not want to be associated with a company that would allow this.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
He believes he is better than Joe Rogan,
He's also correct. Joe Rogan is an egregious fuckwit.
he believes he has the right to dictate to a platform
He absolutely has the right to say what he said.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:The actual objection (Score:5, Insightful)
He's already proposed leaving and then explained his reasoning. He didn't say that Spotify had to choose because he'd already made the decision and explained the reasoning. That's the opposite of an ultimatum.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The actual objection (Score:4, Informative)
“I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform,” the letter continued. “They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.”
FTFY (Score:3)
His actual objection wasn't to the podcast. It was to public airing of wrong kinds of facts, also known as falsehoods.
"I know that these people are wrong, they should shut up so they do not cause a real contagion".
Re:The actual objection (Score:5, Insightful)
His actual objection wasn't to the podcast. It was to public airing of wrong kinds of opinions.
No, not to the wrong kind of opinions. To wrong facts. Despite what many on both extremes of the political spectrum came to believe, "opinions" and "facts" aren't the same thing.
Case in point, if "they" were to divulge that "yours" ritualistically kill babies and drink their blood under the moonlight while chanting the name of Satan, "their" claim it's just an "opinion" wouldn't hold water.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
People with large platforms like Rogan's have a responsibility to their listeners. People take what he has to say seriously and often follow his advice. In fact his podcast is built around getting to the truth and getting a better understanding of the issues.
That's why it's an issue when he starts spreading COVID misinformation. He seems to have over-estimated himself and his ability to do his own research. He was one of the idiots taking horse de-wormer, which doubtless encouraged many others to do likewis
Re: (Score:3)
And listeners have a responsibility not to take morons too seriously. The amount of control we give influencers and celebrities over our own thoughts and identity is frightening.
Re: (Score:2)
The amount of control we give influencers and celebrities over our own thoughts and identity is frightening.
This has been going on with celebrities as long as we've had celebrities, and we've literally always had influencers (though their influence can be much broader than ever before now.) It's more frightening now only because an idiot can reach a larger audience, but it should always have been concerning.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
It is bad enough that Joe Rogan is spreading misinformation - but he is directly profiting from spreading misinformation, with a 100 million deal from Spotify, and has built his brand around doing what he knows gets the most listeners - pumping conspiracy theories and misinformation to an audience that is desperate to hear confirmation of their own beliefs.
If there is any justice in the world, someone who followed his advice will sue him for the damage his misinformation has caused them or their fa
Re: (Score:2)
Shouldn't the listeners be able to decide for themselves?
The small handful of this listeners with actual expertize on the topic? Yes, sure. The vast majority with no expertize? That depends on what you prioritize: the ideal, somewhat fantasy notion, of personal and therefore political equality; or truth. You cannot have both. If political equality comes first, manipulative lies and deception win over truth the vast majority of the time. If truth comes first, the fantasy of political equality goes through the window.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I did not mod it, but I would like to point out, you said this:
That's why it's an issue when he starts spreading COVID misinformation.
which is a false statement. What misinformation specifically did Rogan spread? As far as Covid goes, he talked about what his experience was with Covid, and the treatments his doctor proscribed for him, which seem to have worked well, as he didn't get very sick at all. There was misinformation here, but it was that he took horse de-wormer, which I challenged you on above, as he never took a product labeled horse de-wormer, he took a pill pres
Re:What did Joe Rogan say (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What did Joe Rogan say (Score:5, Informative)
my argument is that from the outside looking in, all opinions are worth listening to from all sides of the debate. that we should all be free to do so without fear of being shut down for having the wrong opinions in the eyes of some.
Joe Rogan says whatever he wants every single day. And if I started posting the opinion that you should be sent to a concentration camp based on your handle, everyone should listen to me?
I dont "trust" joe rogan by any means on anything besides comedy and MMA. I do however apreciate the discussions he has with experts in their fields, even when i disagree with them as it keeps me engaged and looking for data to back up OR deny their opinions validity.
He SOMETIMES has experts in their fields. Some of the people he invites are not experts. Even then his experts spout nonsense. For example, Dr. Oz has been fact-checked that much of his medical advice had no evidence. [latimes.com]
I dont trust rand to tell me about anything other than the constitution and medically anything but the eyes. but id be an idiot to assume he doesnt have more information than i do and a better grasp of medical issues outside of his scope simply because it isnt his focus, but he also due to his scope understands how to read medical journals and studies that i may not fully grasp. IN NO WAY does that mean i will trust everything he says about something but it will make me look at the things hes using and see what conclusions i can come up with.
And you don't trust the 270 other medical professionals that they have more information than Rand Paul? It seems you are being selective based on changing criteria. You trust Rand Paul even though he's not a virologist. But you don't trust other doctors who may not be virologists. You don't see the logical fallacy?
in short, it all boils down to "trust, but verify" something we should be doing with EVERYTHING,
Yes and Rogan has zero evidence that Ivermectin works. Rand Paul's position that masks do not work has been countered by evidence. He also has been caught telling people that "misinformation works"
Not true of Pfizer-BioNTech (Score:3)
The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine has received standard FDA approval - not just emergency use approval. See here [fda.gov]:
On August 23, 2021, the FDA approved the first COVID-19 vaccine, known as the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, now known as Comirnaty (koe-mir’-na-tee), for the prevention of the disease in individuals 16 years of age and older.
To evaluate data from official sources, you have to go look at the sources, and change your evaluation when they update their data.