Spotify continues to remove Joe Rogan episodes
digitalmusicnews.com
digitalmusicnews.com
It's part of their deal. Nothing to see here.
I think it should!
It's disconcerting to see the expansion of platform censorship even if the censored party is aware of it, "doesn't care," and was in on the deal. That "it's just business" doesn't make it a neutral development. Spotify gets to decide what ideologies are acceptable for Spotify listeners. This is just one point on the graph. The overall picture is more and more of this stuff, with little or no resistance.
You like that? You feel nothing either way? There is a moral and political valence to this stuff.
What makes Spotify different from, for example, radio stations deciding which music I should listen to in the 50s? Or TV stations deciding which shows I should see in the 80s?
Media companies have always cared and deliberately curated the ideologies they present -- whether that's a political ideology or a marketing one. (I know that a whole lot of the TV shows of my childhood were aimed at selling me toys, for instance.)
Spotify only cares about the episodes because of concern about injuring their brand via giving offense, which is as close to an ideology as any large corporation gets, to the point where folks (such as you, in this case) get offended by their clumsy attempts to avoid offense.
Rogan doesn't care because it's always been about money. He doubtless took a haircut on his audience by moving to Spotify, all in order to get money up front for less effort on his part.
If there's an implicit argument in that question I'm not able to discern it.
The other side of the coin is that everyone is selling out. We're just returning to the patronage (clientela) model where everyone parrots the patrons for a cut of the profit, legal contract and everything - except Joe Rogan isn't at risk of dying destitute if he doesn't comply and his patrons are faceless corporations.
Spotify is not above criticism, I think it is entirely legitimate and called for to criticize Spotify without overstating your case.
The story here is that Rogan took his show off YouTube and onto Spotify as part of a huge licensing deal. Nothing was stopping him from controlling his work prior to that deal.
It's weird that folks are pointing to a phenomena that's been going on for generations as if it is something novel. There have always been winners and losers in who controls the message. While tech companies seem to be aggregating control over some of the message, it's not like corporate America hasn't had control for a long, long time.
Whether it was print, radio, television, cinema, blogs, podcasts, music, or some other media, there's a centralization tendency. We've had breakout periods of democratization along the way, and today I think we're more democratized than we were historically. I'd wager that diverse views are more available today than they were in, say, the 80s.
"All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say: 'I'm a human being, god-dammit! My life has value!'" is as relevant in 2021 as it was the 1970s, apparently.
I think the framing that he was somehow unable to succeed without accepting censorship is a little off the mark. He made what appears to be a deliberate choice to limit his speech to make more money. Is that a failure? I dunno. It seems like part of freedom of speech should include the freedom to make the decision to stop talking about some things in exchange for cash.
The current state of social media and online discourse is causing some serious problems, but I am not so convinced we are going about fixing it in the right way.
Large companies are least able to remove someone from public discourse today than at any other time in the past. The internet is wide open for people to shout into, although it requires work and money to host content. But it’s still far cheaper and easier than its ever been to reach basically anyone around the world.
How do you today compares to historical American freedom of discourse? For example, I look at things like the House Committee on Un-American Activities, where stating pro-socialist/pro-communist views might get someone fired or imprisoned in the 40s-50s. [1] Or the 'Comics Code' of the 60s-00s, where comics publishers agreed to self-censor. [2]
Or the Hay's Code from motion pictures in the 20s-60s, where things like 'Ridicule of the Clergy' were strictly forbidden? (The Supreme Court even deciding that Freedom of Speech did not apply to motion pictures in 1915.) [3]
Or the Parents Music Resource Center who applied the 'Parental Advisory' sticker to music? [4]
You could be murdered or beaten for being pro-union in the 1900s-1910s.
I bring out these examples not to try and add some whataboutism, but rather to try and connect the Spotify/Tech company case to a broader historical context. Yes, these things are bad, and it may also be bad that we're seeing that consolidation today. It's important to be educated about historical precedents, about who had the authority and who was silenced, about which groups held power of which others, and about how we should holistically look at the problem of limiting public discourse.
Far too often I see people narrowly focus on the now, focus on specific recent events and say, "This is an unprecedented shut down of discourse." (And to be clear, this comment is not aimed at you, skohan, but more broadly.) Or, "This is not who we are as a nation!". When in fact, looking through the historical record, we've absolutely been disallowing certain discourse in pretty much every decade for at least the last century.
It may be that it's a different group this time, it may feel novel to folks because they are young and haven't experienced it firsthand, it may feel different because the underlying technologies are different, but fundamentally there is a throughline of shutting down discussions when 'the powers that be' dislike it, and we should be, imo, discussion that broader trend as much as the moment now.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Un-American_Activities_C... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Music_Resource_Center
I do think that tech control of discourse is an important thing to watch. I don't yet believe that it's impossible for people with extreme views to find a host; I am right now looking at a Google Podcasts page hosting an unquestionably white supremacist, Holocaust-denying podcast. When I was younger, you had to go find yourself a dingy mimeographed snail mail catalog of books to get a copy of Ragnar Redbeard's book. It's way easier these days.
But yes. Even if you think that the danger of conspiracy theories is such that it warrants restraints on free speech, it is also true that you should be extremely concerned with how those restraints are determined and enforced.
That said, if you're not looking at trends over decades, you are likely to overreact to the short term.
I think a huge factor that separates the current state of media from the pre-web-2.0 era is the rise in algorithmic content feeds. It's not just the fact that Google and Facebook allow extremist content on their platforms, it's the fact that they actively promote it to millions of consumers. Those looking to radicalize can find ways to game the algorithms and get their content put in front of massive numbers of users, often with the endorsement of a friend or family member.
I think this is a problem, but I think the current solution is also not a good one. These same organizations which in some ways created the problem have proposed that the solution should be enforcing unilateral control over which speech should and should not exist on their platforms. And as I have said in other threads, this is especially relevant now because the ability to exist on these 4-5 platforms essentially does amount to existing in public life during the pandemic.
I am not attributing malice to these organizations, but I do think we should work towards defining some rules of the road for online discourse, and that these rules should be defined by the public rather than by unaccountable teams inside corporations.
Since we're talking about the past, in the past centuries we defined a legal framework around libel and slander. We also had laws in the 20th century (which have been substantially weakened) which prevented one entity from owning too high a percentage of the media outlets in a single market. I think it's time for us as a society to think long and hard about what rules should be put in place to make online discourse safer and healthier. I am not saying I know what those rules should be, but I don't think it's a responsibility we should just hand to the organizations which have had the most success in the market.
To make an analogy, the average life expectancy has increased massively since the iron age. That does not mean we should not be worried if we observe a decrease in average life expectancy year over year.
Meanwhile, podcasts generally continue to become dramatically more popular, thus taking more and more media consumption time away from the large networks.
For many he was one of the last credible places that would give a place to more extreme voices, even if he might not agree. For years he actively advocated free speech and integrity. Commercially it might be part of the deal, but it's understandable many of his listeners feel like he sold out.
Still, Joe openly being an absolute COVID Karen should give people some idea about how much influence Spotify has on what he says.
> Whether Rogan understood that several dozen shows were being removed — and may still be getting removed — is also unclear.
42 of his shows have been removed. Even out of 1631 shows, that seems like more than a few. For $100 million he may not care, but for general listeners its a little unnerving that Spotify would be doing this. I'm a grown adult, I can decide what I want to listen to - why are they getting in the way? One of the main of appeals of his program is that he's having interesting conversations with interesting people. He's willing to talk to people with wildly different view points. When Spotify's editors start removing shows they don't like, they also remove part of the appeal of the show. If they find so much of the show unpalatable, why did they make the deal in the first place?
I'm also a grown adult. I can stop paying money to those that host content with Alex Jones (and indirectly basically pay Alex Jones). Not sure I'm representative or part of a larger group than those that want to pay Spotify to hear Alex Jones. Hard to say.
> If they find so much of the show unpalatable, why did they make the deal in the first place?
Completely agree. That said, this is 2% of the content. There is some fraction of the content that makes sense to cut out. It could be zero or one episode, or 2% or half of them. But there is a point where the trouble they get into on some level is just larger than the gain. And I think they just played it safe here.
Also, when other outlets (Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, whatever) ban something or someone, it becomes even less comfortable to keep them on. So it's pretty understandable I think.
If you won’t use a service that lets you make custom playlists just because they also serve stuff that you don’t like to other people, and others do that, we’re going to only have terrible content.
Will you not shop at a bookstore that sells Alex Jones books?
Will you not ride on a bus that allows Alex Jones?
If people expect this level of micromanagement of content platforms then we’re doomed to only have content so boring that no one complains about it.
Shows how protocols are more important than platforms.
> Will you not shop at a bookstore that sells Alex Jones books?
It depends. I’m not going to judge a store by having a large selection of books including things I disagree with. But if the store has a huge display of Jones books on a big table in the center? An Alex Jones book signing is taking place in the store? Yeah I’m probably going elsewhere.
The risk here I think is that people like Alex Jones are included in what we call “the political spectrum”. He’s not part of it. Booting him isn’t a political stance. He’s not some voice of right wing politics or even extreme right or “alt right”.
My concern with your reasoning, and if enough people think similarly to you, is that people don’t like lots of people.
So if people skip a bookstore because they have a JK Rowling signing, they lost customers. And if people skip for a Ben Shapiro signing. And if they skip for a Hemingway signing (raised for the dead through necromancy just for a signing). Etc etc
Bookstores like money so rationally they’ll stop having signings from people who could alienate customers.
I like having lots of choices for books and worry that eventually there won’t be stores that carry the books I want to read. So I tolerate the availability of lots of stuff because that leads to books I like being available.
Spotify being responsible for lyrics is a bad thing. I remember in the 80s and 90s when Congress tried to pressure music labels to censor lyrics on albums. That sucked. Not just because it was Congress but because it made it harder for artists to express their ideas. Companies like Walmart would only carry censored versions or not carry albums at all. That sucked.
People were butthurt about curse words and devil references back then. Being butthurt about gay frogs and Sandy hook stupid conspiracy theories is today’s version, replacing alt right for satanists and cop killers.
I think this collaboration goes a bit further than their regular catalog but ok I agree there is a difficult line to draw here
> My concern with your reasoning, and if enough people think similarly to you, is that people don’t like lots of people.
I think that’s unavoidable that people object to a tiny bit of content so much that they reject a whole company based on it. And it’s also unavoidable that a company would adjust their catalog.
> So if people skip a bookstore because they have a JK Rowling signing, they lost customers.
Indeed. I’m sure there are people who are offended by JKR who would boycott a store that invites her.
> And if people skip for a Ben Shapiro signing. And if they skip for a Hemingway signing (raised for the dead through necromancy just for a signing). Etc etc Bookstores like money so rationally they’ll stop having signings from people who could alienate customers.
Of course. But I’m guessing book signings also drive customers. So the sensible thing commercially is to invite everyone but the alienating ones. Thus creating a set of non-offensive book signings that drive more business than they alienate. I don’t really see the alternative to this setup? Is it forcing book stores to carry books? Banning boycotts by customers? What?
It’s one thing to say “I don’t like this it’s a worrying trend” and another thing entirely to argue the alternative. I can’t see one! (I’m not worried half as much by tech giant censorship as I am about the effect of spread of the content like Jones’ though obviously which is why I’m not concerned about this)
> I like having lots of choices for books and worry that eventually there won’t be stores that carry the books I want to read. So I tolerate the availability of lots of stuff because that leads to books I like being available.
I too like having lots of choices for content. I’m however more than ready to sacrifice a bit of content to remove the platform for some other content so that even people who like it aren’t reached by it. I don’t see a big problem with arbitrarily having someone like Spotify being allowed to decide what falls into the category that should be marginalized.
> Spotify being responsible for lyrics is a bad thing. I remember in the 80s and 90s when Congress tried to pressure music labels to censor lyrics on albums. That sucked. Not just because it was Congress but because it made it harder for artists to express their ideas. Companies like Walmart would only carry censored versions or not carry albums at all. That sucked. People were butthurt about curse words and devil references back then. Being butthurt about gay frogs and Sandy hook stupid conspiracy theories is today’s version, replacing alt right for satanists and cop killers.
Oh I don’t think government should make any laws here. That’s censorship. That’s positively dystopian. But the same works in reverse - should Spotify be forced (by who?) to promote something? I just don’t see why they can’t be free to associate with whatever content they want? Of course there are limits to speech also for book stores (there are a few countries that have extreme free speech protections without many restrictions, such as the US, but even there no one is forced to say or promote anything.)
That I hold them morally responsible for their platform doesn’t mean I think they should be legally responsible or that there should be censorship laws. Free speech is important in the negative, possibly more so. Being able to not promote something is important.
I think the issue is that there’s no single moral authority and if I expect companies to meet my moral standards then maybe one day they meet someone else’s and that will suck. I’d rather companies not try to match what I exactly have and stick to some more objective level like what’s legal/illegal. That’s still subjective but less likely to change.
> should Spotify be forced
Of course not, but I’m suggesting that Spotify not try to micromanage content by removing specific content from artists for arbitrary reasons.
I’m not talking about legal responsibility, I’m taking about them not being jerks and positively contributing to society. I think it’s a net negative for society when Spotify tries to remove stuff like Alex Jones. Or if they were to remove explicit lyrics and curse words.
I’d rather have a protocol that doesn’t differentiate and just lets me choose.
I remember AOL before the web was widespread. It sucked and they literally blocked curse words from their pages. The web was better because it let users choose. Stuff was still taken down when criminal, but in general, I didn’t have to worry whether AOL “promoted content on their platform.”
Spotify is like the legal version of Napster, but Napster was better because it didn’t try to limit or promote content. I liked that it just connected people together and let me discover music. Any lists or promotion was a layer applied on top of Napster.
I think the concept of promoting is also something I don’t want. I don’t want Spotify promoting specific content.
Comically, stuff like this moves me closer to piracy as it just gives a better user experience.
Radio stations are more careful about music selection than record stores, because they are seen as choosing their music making it an expression of their opinion and not their customers. They play it next to messages from sponsors who don't want to be associated with everything and so on. Spotify is obviously closer to record store than radio station, but they do have commercial messages.
(A note for younger readers, a "record store" was a kind of brick and mortar shop where songs were sold engraved onto physical artifacts).
But (and this I think is key): Even record stores have always entirely stayed away from some material. Not just the material that is illegal, but also material that is simply offensive or objectionable. They put Parental Advisory stickers on rap albums, but no main street record stores carried nazi music, for example, even though there was never a shortage of it, and it was never outlawed in many countries. If a band was known as a nazi music band, they weren't showing up on record store shelves with their non-nazi album either. That is - they were boycotted as artists, not merely some objectionable content. I'd put Alex Jones (but not many more of JRE guests) in the "Nazi band" bucket. The ones that record stores didn't have on shelves because customers, owners, employees etc wouldn't stand for it.
My point is: this isn't some "woke" phenomenon of cancel culture. It's the way it's always been.
From the articles linked it's almost as if half of Spotify went "yes! Finally we'll have the power to reign that monster in, and silence him. We'll make him our PC puppet! Muhahahaha"
I think it's new. It was intended as a business deal, but the activist-firsts are seeing their chance to silence an enemy.
> In September 2015, Martin launched The Empire Files, an interview and documentary series. She has hosted guests including Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, Richard D. Wolff, Ralph Nader and Jill Stein.
I can't tell whether you're running a satire account.
Nothing to see here from a legal viewpoint, yes. Ethically it's very much looking into how a big platform is using its power to hide certain kinds of content from its viewers.
That's not true. When Joe moved to Spotify his entire catalog didn't move, that's what he "didn't care about".
This is a new wave of canceled episodes. And there's no telling if these "activist" employees will find future episodes or more past episodes "problematic", in which case they may also be removed.
However, this is not a free speech issue. "free speech" only makes sense in the context of government regulation (vs individuals/corporations), because governments have a monopoly on violence. As soon as two non-government entities are "regulating each other", it is a matter of mutual free speech. e.g. what about the free speech of Spotify?
There is no hypocrisy here. Rogan can still be pro-"free speech" given that is in the context of government regulation. Rogan can also still be pro-"anti censorship" in terms of stifling competition (which a lot of people conflate with "free speech"). However, Rogan is running a business and so is Spotify, they made a mutually beneficial deal, no competition was stifled.
I also find it quite interesting how the same people using the "private business" excuse also keep taking a baker to courts for refusing to write something on a cake which is against his beliefs.
As for Joe Rogan, he specifically lied to his viewers (I am saying this as someone who's a fan of his btw). He specifically told viewers last year that he will have full control over his content and Spotify gave him full freedom. He even made bs excuses when a few of his episodes didn't get ported over to Spotify and he claimed it was because of a technical glitch. Somehow the glitches only happened to the "controversial" people shows.
I am surprised he hasn't been class action sued yet considering his false claims and advertisements might have gotten many people to subscribe to Spotify. As a fan of his, this was deeply disappointing and I actually hope he gets sued for lying to his viewers.
This analogy only works if and only if Rosa Parks was getting paid $100 MM to sit in the back of the bus. Rest assured, both of us agree she was in a very, very different situation.
> As for Joe Rogan, he specifically lied to his viewers
Yeah, I agree this is a reasonable assertion. JRE should not have made claims they couldn’t keep.
Does anyone need to say that SV is left-leaning? Some of us bought into the idea that Joe's contract protected him from censorship, but now we know that's not the case.
Different channels have entirely different comments. e.g. same piece on CNN will have VERY different view points vs the same video posted on Fox News.
Channels like Joe Rogan are good in that you can find a more balanced comment section with both opposing viewpoints being respected or disrespected, more or less equally.
I don't think the discrimination is related to racism in any way.
The answer is simple: think a bit more about modern world, which is more globalised than one thinks and the trend is to only globalise further. YouTube didn’t have any problem letting me watch JRE, so at least in that respect I’m sure the solution is possible.
Usually it's business - not discrimination. Content is licensed by country, so the content owners (at least think) they can get more value elsewhere.
In a way we should welcome this. We don't really want spotify to determine what content to distribute globally.
Global platforms like Steam are aggressively discounted for Ukraine, so unfortunately Ukrainian audience members * Ukrainian market value is probably just not high enough.
I think you are wrong with regards to “more value somewhere else”. I think the decision was made because they didn’t want to show the “podcasts” section until they can ensure the experience will be great and they have content moderation and such. So they did the simplest thing. But my point is that it does more harm than they realize, since their view of the world is too simplistic and non-globalised.
EDIT: Nope, this only has up to #1476, while YouTube hosts up to #1558 and Spotify goes beyond that.
TV shows began on network TV. The whole point of podcasting was anyone can start one. Unlike TV shows, it's quite easy from a technical perspective to host a podcast. Audio talk shows don't have to be high bitrate.
Honestly I think stranglehold on video will similarly fade away when high speed internet is highly available everywhere.
I don't think most people will go through the hassle of disentangling themselves from tech monopolies. What's the benefit? For most people, having everything managed by Google/Apple/Facebook is a benefit rather than a bad thing.
> The whole point of podcasting was anyone can start one.
Has this changed?
Hosting a few MP3s and a text file that can be downloaded in a few seconds is a lot cheaper and easier than a video streaming setup (or a 10-20 kilowatt broadcast transmitter).
Their play is a hybrid of a streaming service and an adtech giant, and I imagine they're keeping their options open to see whether it pays to keep both sides of that model open or to pick one. Either way, one of the reasons I don't like what they're doing is because I can see it working.
Besides all that, there is some value to having all of your audio in one app.
Oh and the fact that almost every guest is a comedian or MME fighter.. two categories that are barely compelling to me.
I always skip both, yet sure spent many many hours watching JRE.
Top viewed videos guests are (just pulled it right now from PowerJRE channel, in order of view count)
https://www.youtube.com/c/joerogan/videos?view=0&sort=p&flow...
* Elon Musk
* Alex Jones
* Edward Snowden
* Ben Shapiro
* Neil deGrasse Tyson
* Michael Osterholm (Biden's top COVID advisor a year before he got that position)
* Bernie Sanders
* Kanye West
* Robert Downey Jr.
* Dr Phill
And the list goes on. All comedians and MMA fighters are at the bottom of the view count, easy to skip if you just sort the views.
Usually though, it means empire building and millions in bonuses for executives who won't be held accountable for the long term effects of the move.
> Just last week, Digital Music News first reported that 40 different Joe Rogan Experience podcast episodes were found missing from Spotify, now the exclusive platform for the show. Now, that number has quickly grown to 42
It quickly grew by 2!
Spotify knew exactly what they bought.
It’s a source of outrage that keeps on giving.
Though I wish that more people were outraged at the fact that video podcasts are not done well in Spotify. Now that’s the real problem.
Are you sure about that? When has talk about Bigfoot, moon landing conspiracies, the government turning frogs gay, and other such nonsense been welcome in "open conversation"?
If there was one, Spotify would sue to have it taken down. The goal of censorship isn't to remove "offensive" content from Spotify: the goal is to remove it from existence, completely, as though it had never been.
Good luck suing. Will be fun to watch news coverage about the uTorrent guy suing torrenters.
I dont know why this happens but Spotify does not work with UConnect on my Jeep. It plays for 1-2 seconds and then mutes. Spotify is the only music/audio platform that doesnt work with Uconnect, but that immediately removes it from being played in my car. Long car rides are where I consume podcasts, so no Joe Rogan.
It’s a combination of the Spotify app being really bad and being different than all my other podcasts. I browse new episodes from all my subs through my regular player and rarely open a separate app just to see what’s new with JRE.
I hope he doesn’t renew the Spotify deal.
I am a paying premium paying customer. Why do I get ads in the beginning and middle of the podcast? And there was a bug where to if you skip too fast, it jumps back to replaying the ads again. Super frustrating.
I don't ever watch the podcast video stream but the few times I did, it was super buggy, sometimes jumping forward/backward in time or simply not responding to input.
Luckily a random redditor posted a URL where you can listen to podcast using traditional RSS [1][2].
Imagine being media in 2021 and denying access to your site based on adblocking? I instantly close the site. What are they providing that I can't get elsewhere? What are they providing beyond the headline?
https://www.thewrap.com/spotify-deletes-joe-rogan-podcast-ep...
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/spotify-deletes-controversial...
What would you do: take $100 million and get silenced? Or refuse the money and remain independent?
Also the listening/viewing experience on spotify is horrible. I used to get podcasts on my app of choice and have the YouTube videos running in the background. I've definitely stopped listening as much
Reality is Spotify and other companies are trying to corner the podcast market, this is going to lead to more censorship in this space. You might be inclined to say creators can just avoid these platforms but it will become harder not to use those platforms when looking for an audience.
Rogan despite portraying a right leaning / freedom of speech angle doesn't actually really care so it's not surprising he just grabbed the money and accepted censorship.
In calling them meek, you're making a value judgement. They're weak because you see them as relenting to outside pressure. But that's what businesses do -- they chase money, and to do that effectively means following the whims of the market. And people are entitled to their own opinions, which may differ from your own. Neither is meekness.
That being said, I think every show has been pirated and is available for download somewhere.
Maybe they asked for a cut of the money?
It's only human, I would gladly do a lot of shit against what I believe in for even $1 million USD.
Their users? Their content creators? Or rather their staff?
All 3 groups could be possible reasons. But given how little median content creators matter to the organization, users and staff are more likely.
But if it were the users, then why buy Joe Rogan's users at all? Especially at a record braking price?
This makes me believe it's more likely staff.
If that is the case one has to wonder: is this generally the sad mental state of tech workers? Or is it rather a few employees who, emboldened by cancel-culture, will toss their political agenda around the office while other employees, intimidated by cancel-culture, shy away from calling out the obvious BS?
Spotify has 5,000+ employees -- I wouldn't assume for a second that it's the tech workers doing this, I suspect it's probably HR and marketing and so on. It's a big bureaucratic organization.
I like to think if I was at Spotify, and I saw people holding the company hostage like this -- threatening to quit (or whatever) if they don't get their way -- that I would stand up and threaten to do the same if they do get their way.
If the only way to remove the ability of these people to make threats is to create a lose-lose situation for your employer, then you have a responsibility to do that. If enough companies see this happen and are forced to navigate a needless lose-lose situation, maybe we'll see companies take a harder position against advocacy and activism and politics in the workplace. If all else is equal, hopefully they'll be forced to take the position that they would have taken if nobody threatened anything; they'll fall back to their actual principles.
I don't have a problem with the platform restricting content. I have a problem with the behavior of the employees reaching outside of their role to forward their political goals. If your job is to curate content, and you disagree with the content of JRE, you would have stopped the deal from happening in the first place.
The vast majority of executives in the corporate world are conservative, and in addition to personally supporting conservative movements, they frequently direct company resources towards furthering right leaning agendas.
Is it really that offensive that a handful of employees are at a handful of tech companies are trying to steer the ship in the other direction? Are you similarly offended when oil companies lobby the government to further the oil industries interests? Are you offended when corporations successfully push congress to pass tax breaks largely targeted at corporations and the rich?
It seems like most SJW-converged companies have been doing just fine as companies, otherwise the invisible hand of the market would have put a stop to this long ago.
I listen to JRE on Spotify and am not happy about the decision. Actually the first episode I listened to was an Alex Jones + Tim Dillon episode (Tim being a comic I like) that is now gone. And while I don't agree with Alex Jones, I listened to it because I expected it to be controversial or nutty.
There are people who say once you give in to the woke mob they won't stop there, I wouldn't be surprised if now they know they can get other targets canceled if those targets don't consume their orthodoxy.
And it’s not the values, it’s the disruption. If you had anti-abortion Republicans doing the same would everyone be saying how the company should “tread lightly”.
> And it’s not the values, it’s the disruption.
People want to feel like they're in a career that aligns with their values, and the more in demand your talent is, the more you're able to make demands of your employers to have them be values-aligned. If employers don't need top shelf talent, they're free to ignore that and be less competitive in the market for talent. However, successful companies usually tend to compete. We're talking about Spotify because they competed for and hired high-grade talent, and that high-grade talent wants their company to be values-aligned.
And your examples of silence seem fuzzy. Who was trying to “silence” (suppress speech) of South Africa? Suppress their racist political system? Sure, but I don’t recall anyone saying they can’t talk.
> One of the submitted questions was "Many LGBTQAI+/ally Spotifiers feel unwelcome and alienated because of leadership's response in JRE conversations. What is your message to those employees?" Another was “Why has Spotify chosen to ignore Spectrum ERG's guidance about transphobic content in the JRE catalog?,” referring to a group of Spotify workers who focus on related issues.
> At the meeting, Ek also told employees not to leak to the media, noting "If we can't have open, confidential debates, we will have to move those discussions to closed doors."
ERGs often have some kind of liaison from HR, especially since they are often associated with diversity programs. But the ERG itself is usually just advisory if they're consulted on something the company is doing.
It seems like all I hear are the usual suspects: Me Undies, Blue Apron, etc.
On other hand, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the companies marketing on things like pod casts... Some pretty famous ones don't seem to be too special products, see Raid Shadowlegends, Raycon and all of the VPN providers...
I don't really know who this guy is or why you'd spend 100 million on him to secure a deal. But he's walking away with that money and Spotify is left with the infighting. They fucked themselves over with that absurd investment.
Is Spotify going to blow another 100 mil on that one and hope for the best?
They messed up by betting large on a celebrity and ignoring the fact that Joe Rogan wasn't a cultural fit.
He's a cultural fit for x hundreds of millions. You may not fall into that demographic, but there's no discounting that other cultures exist outside of your own.
He's a pro weed, universal health care loving, self-described left of center guy big in the MMA and stand-up comedy circles.
He now has the world's most popular podcast, but because he frequently has guests who are right wing, despite debating them about these things on the show, he is attacked for giving these folks a platform to spread their ideas.
Due to his expertise in MMA and the fact that he's a formally trained fighter and martial artist, he was shaken by an event he witnessed: The fracturing of a woman's skull by Fallon Fox, a transgender woman who hid the fact that she had previously been a male, and had recently transitioned from the league. He commented on it.
This put him in very hot water with the trans activist community, despite the fact that the vast majority of the American public has similar concerns.
The reality is this deal made Spotify a lot of money and brought them listeners and advertising revenue. You don't know who he is, but you aren't the target audience, and your opinions and the opinions of the employees don't matter. Spotify exists to make investors money by creating value for the listeners. The employees shouldn't have any power over how it does that, because they own as much as the equity they've been given, and nothing more.
Okay, sure.
> [...the rest of the post...]
I don't see how this connects.
> your opinions and the opinions of the employees don't matter
But your opinion does? It must matter to you, since you spent a few paragraphs on it.
Guessing that what ljm meant was that those opinions shouldn't be important in their personal choice about what to listen to or not listen to.
Their logic dictates that none of our opinions matter. That's fine by me; we're squabbling over nothing.
Expressing my opinion on a message board isn't a claim that the executives should listen to me.
I'm unaware of any law which requires a business to make money for investors. A business can promise to pay dividends and they can speculate on where their stock can be at a future date, but there is no legal recourse if they lose money.
https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2019/08/24/stakeholder-gover...
This is it. The intimidation is real; look at what happened to James Damore.
The depiction of the memo in the media was that he said women weren't as intelligent as men. Even though he explicitly called out that this is not what he was saying, he referred only to innate factors influencing preferences not intelligence.
YouTube always claims they're demonetizing videos for their advertisers. i.e companies threatening to either boycott advertising on the platform entirely, or ones who don't their products appear in videos with certain content.
Maybe Spotify is doing it for the same reason?
[1] https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/120314/spoti...
Do you have the same opinion about YouTube, which has every political spectrum and its polar opposite on the same platform?
I think it’s great that YouTube, Facebook, Twitter etc also ban Alex Jones yes. I see the risk of tech platforms acting as giant censors to be the smaller problem here.
- I’ve never heard “acquiesce” used with a direct object and dictionaries don’t seem to have either
- but they said “aquisice” anyway so who knows
So yeah, it’s needlessly flowery and incorrect (name a more iconic duo), but the “whom” isn’t this time (although “who” would also be good).
Those episodes literally had a discussion about the problems of blackface, and the point of the show is that the characters are terrible people and that’s why the characters did it.[0]
Like you said, all nuance is lost in proactively defending against the online activist mob and we lose good discussion in the process.
Standing up to them comes at a high cost, but when has it ever been easy. Perhaps the rest of society has too much to lose now.
Society in the West in contrast to... what exactly? Are you under the impression non-Western societies don't shape culture based on norms and expectations about what's proper or right? How is Spotify deleting episodes from their own platform tyranny? Jesus people have become so dramatic and whiny. Here's a crazy idea, if you don't want your episodes deleted don't sell rights to your intellectual property for 100 million bucks to another party
Come to think of it, maybe just the speed and availability. Mass letter writing campaigns are totally a thing, but they require significant efforts to coordinate
Previously, more interaction was personal and ephemeral. If I said something to someone on the street, maybe the 5 closest people heard me.
In a small town, word would probably get around in ~2 weeks of social interactions, if it was scandalous enough.
Now, on the majority of social media platforms, if you reply to me then all of my friends + all of your friends immediately see the reply. Both the broadcasting and immediacy seem relatively novel.
A tyrant is someone who puts dissidents up against the wall and puts a bullet in their head, not a streaming platform deciding what they want to stream.
It certainly is not cruel for any definition of cruel I am familiar with. It certainly isn't arbitrary, Spotify is not doing this on a whim and it isn't taking down all the episodes, it clearly is being very deliberate, though you may disagree with their process. The only one could be unreasonable, but what exactly makes this unreasonable? Again, you may disagree with their reasoning, but it is not an unreasonable position.
Why don't we back off this extreme rhetoric that plagues our conversations today?
Those are slightly incorrect interpretations of the words 'arbitrary' and 'unreasonable'.
Reasonable doesn't mean 'has reasons'. Every decisions has reasons. If a king decides to chop someone's head off he had reasons - he felt like it. Being reasonable/unreasonable is about whether an opinion can be changed by evidence and argument. Almost all moderation is unreasonable, I've very rarely seen a moderator make a call and then not stick with it (being unreasonable isn't always a bad thing). Reasonableness is a judgement call on the quality of the reasons behind a decision.
Similarly, arbitrary doesn't mean unpredictable. It is a judgement call on whether the reasons behind an action are reasonable. Being done on behalf of a policy doesn't make an action reasonable.
It is quite an easily sustainable argument that any content moderation policy is arbitrary. Compare European vs American media norms around moderating sex - it is pretty easy to argue by comparison some of the standards floating around are arbitrary, because standards differ but both continents produce great media which involves sex.
None of these are by personal whim, there is clearly a process/system in place to determine whether an episode should stay.
unreasonable: "not guided by or based on good sense" and "beyond the limits of acceptability or fairness." Sorry, I just don't see how these decisions could be considered unreasonable. You may disagree with the moral sense of why they are doing this, you may disagree that that is good sense, but that would be best, your opinion, not some empirically correct point of view.
Which system are you thinking of? There is probably just a content moderation group that makes aye/nay calls. A system is something like judicial review of police actions, or that strange independent review council that Facebook is setting up.
Spotify's 'system' is going to boil down to someone making arbitrary calls. There isn't a science to it.
> Sorry, I just don't see how these decisions could be considered unreasonable.
Millions of people endorse Joe Rogan, he is a benchmark of what acceptability means. Joe Rogan talking about something is almost definitely marking it as something that is a matter of interest to the public and a legit topic of conversation.
He is far more qualified to decide what is and isn't acceptable to his audience and the public discourse than Spotify, some random corporation filled with people who passed a job interview.
Censoring his content is unreasonable by default, unless Spotify has a really compelling argument.
Or is it tyranny to not force a business to accept everyone, even if they don't comply with social norms like, say, wearing a mask?
He is being more than fairly compensated. They don't have to host his white nationalist content.
They pay him handsomely for the privilege of removing the episodes where he uncritically nods along with the likes of Stephan Moleneaux and Alex Jones.
See: Hells Angels interviews on primetime TV in the 70s-80s etc at the peak of the fear surrounding them.
It is especially weird considering this was basically a foregone conclusion the moment Rogan signed with Spotify. Take a look at the HN comments when the news broke[1].
Spotify has a policy that says they won't host certain content. Rogan and his guests have a history of saying things that don't fit that content policy. It didn't take a genius to see those two things were incompatible. I'm not sure there is any convincing argument that Rogan is being mistreated for walking right into this easily predictable situation.
Citation needed
This is Spotify's content policy:
https://support.spotifyforpodcasters.com/hc/en-us/articles/3...
Assuming we're not talking about infringing or illegal content, we're left to conclude that Rogan "promotes, advocates, or incites hatred or violence against a group or individual based on characteristics, including, race, religion, gender identity, sex, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, veteran status, or disability."
Note, that does not mean "has an un-PC take on something", it very specifically says promotes, advocates or incites hatred or violence. Where and when has Rogan ever done that?
If pointing out simple biological realities like "the bodies of people who go through puberty as a male have more muscle mass than the bodies of people who go through puberty as a female" constitutes "promoting hate" then the concept has no meaning. If a phrase is "impossible to define" perhaps it is not a good basis on which to form a policy.
The clip you posted was about weightlifting. If a biological man can call himself a woman and compete in women's weightlifting, why don't we just get rid of the gender categories altogether and have men and women compete together? If we did that, do you think any woman, trans or cis, would ever win a title again?
Regardless, reasonable people can disagree about these things. Back to the original question: in what conceivable way does any of this constitute promoting hatred or violence? Rogan said that people who are biologically male should compete with other people who are also biologically male, I don't see where he said we should beat them up or kill them or anything like that? So we are not allowed to have differences of opinion about which competitions people should compete in?
>Rogan didn't even say trans women shouldn't compete
This is what Rogan said (rough transcript):
>[When you let a trans women competing against cisgender women] you are stealing from [cisgender] women, you are stealing victory, you are cheating, you are fucking 100% cheating, and anybody who says they are not is an asshole.
You are misrepresenting Rogan's point to make it sound more acceptable. He is not speaking specifically about MMA. He is not talking about other competitors having a choice. He is just straight saying that a trans woman is cheating by competing against cis women.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQTfyjhvfH8&t=4210s
This is where he's talking about MMA. There were other occasions where he mentioned disclosing it. I don't remember the exact episode and timestamp.
But like I said above (sorry, edited as I thought more). What does any of this have to do with promoting hate or violence? Does thinking people should compete in this or that competition somehow mean you hate them?
I never said it did constitute everything he has ever said on the topic. However that isn't the point. Not every episode is being removed. Only some of them are. He can be accepting of trans people on 99 episodes and it doesn't undo being transphobic on the 100th. It is also possible his opinions have evolved over time, but we aren't judging his current opinion. All that maters is what was said on the specific episodes being removed.
>What does any of this have to do with promoting hate or violence? Does thinking people should compete in this or that competition somehow mean you hate them?
You are the one who brought sports into this. I simply stated he has been repeatedly accused of transphobia. His opinion on sports is part of that, but it isn't the only time he has been called transphobic.
Ok, then find a clip where he promotes violence against trans people or any other group or tells people to hate them. The burden of proof is on people making the claim to provide evidence that supports it, not the other way around.
Edit:
To get back to the fundamental question here. The issue is, Spotify has a policy. Does Rogan violate the policy or not? By your own description, the policy hinges on terms that are "impossible to define". So, is a policy with undefinable terms a good policy? Is there any objective way to determine whether it was violated or not and apply it fairly and consistently to everyone? If not, why are we holding up the policy as a gold standard and using it as a justification for censorship when it is impossible to determine whether or not it was violated?
I didn't accuse him of transphobia. I said he can't go a few months without new accusations of transphobia. That is just a fact. If you want, you can go through those Google results from a few comments back and try to refute those accusations. I don't care enough about Joe Rogan to try to prove anything about him.
I never said Spotify's policy was "a gold standard" or even "good policy". I'm not defending their actions in removing specific episodes. I have no idea why those specific episodes were removed. I simply started with a comment that this was an obvious eventuality due to Spotify's policy and what Rogan says (it is a simple fact that he is often accused of spreading hate speech, whether what he says is actually hate speech is almost irrelevant because the accusations alone are enough to know that he would eventually be perceived to have violated the policy).
1. This was an "obvious eventuality"
2. This does not constitute mistreatment of Rogan by Spotify.
First, many of the episodes such as the Milo Yiannopoulos one predate the Spotify deal. Spotify knew what they were buying and should have said at the time what they were and were not willing to host. Only Spotify and and Rogan know for sure the details of what was in their contract, but from what Rogan has said on the show, they had agreed that Spotify would have no creative control and they would host the whole catalog. I doubt very, very much that anyone would engage in a 9-figure contract without spelling out these details. If Spotify has decided to renege on what they agreed to, I think that makes it both non-obvious that that would happen and mistreatment (they are not honoring the contract).
Whenever these controversies arise, if Rogan mentions them on the show at all he says that nobody from Spotify says anything to him about them and he gets no feedback from them at all about the content, since they aren't supposed to have any creative control over the show. Maybe he's lying, but if not, I think that would also be non-obvious and mistreatment if Spotify is telling Rogan there's no problem and then taking content down behind his back.
And just...I don't understand this attitude. "Well of course people will make baseless accusations, and you'll be punished because of them without anyone trying to figure out the facts! You know this will happen, so it's not a problem!" Like....yes, that's a problem.
"Of course you get sent to the gulag if someone accuses you of criticizing Stalin. You know it doesn't matter if it's true or not! You know all this, so it's not mistreatment! It's just an obvious eventuality!"
Edit: I say people, but realistically no human could exist with such flagrant disregard for logic and reasonable discourse.
"I didn't accuse him of being a Kenyan. I said he can't go a few months without new accusations of being a Kenyan. That is just a fact. If you want, you can go through those Google results from a few comments back and try to refute those accusations. I don't care enough about Barack Obama to try to prove anything about him."
^ What’s wrong with that statement? It’s a crude way to phrase things, but it’s true. Saying trans women have a biologic advantage when competing against cis women is not transphobic.
I never said it was transphobic.
Do you truly believe that this person would have no advantage competing against cisgender woman? I think most people would be able to see the obvious advantage Janae gained from formerly being a male.
The truth is that trans women have been allowed to compete on the collegiate and international stages for almost two decades at this point. Where are all the transgender athletes dominating competition. Why doesn't Janae Kroc have a Olympic gold medal? This fear is mostly unfounded.
EDIT: I did a little more research after posting and I will refer you to the words of Kroc herself[1]:
> And yes as hard as it is to believe for some people one year is a sufficient amount of time for HRT to completely eliminate any advantage that person had and there is significant evidence to back this up. This is also why even though trans women have been able to compete in the Olympics since Athens in 2004 we have not had one single trans woman medal at the Olympics...
>As far as going forward is concerned it's all about education. This is so much misinformation out there and so many people talking about how transwomen will dominate all women's sports and yet that has never happened. It's very similar to the threat of transwomen in bathrooms concerning child safety. No recorded incidents ever but it was used as a scare tactic to enact laws.
[1] - https://old.reddit.com/r/powerlifting/comments/75rd7q/janae_...
So, to answer your question, the reason Janae does not hold a gold medal in women's weightlifting, is that she never competed as a woman.
It is not really comparable to an average, non-professional athlete competing against a professional athlete. A fair comparison would be Lebron James competing against Breanna Stewart (WNBA Finals MVP) or the LA Lakers competing against the Houston Comets.
And hey, that might be interesting! But it's not currently what we're doing. Again, if biological sex doesn't make any difference in sports, then why even have separate men's and women's competitions at all?
[1] The Wikipedia page notes she uses male pronouns when referring to the time before transitioning.
Which is not a transphobic take, it's a logical, biologically correct take.
Biological males are just stronger, in general.
It provides a disadvantage to biological females.
There is also a difference between someone with "contrarian views" and someone with dangerous views. I got no problem if he has someone on to talk about how we shouldn't introduce gun regulation in the wake of Sandy Hook. I have a problem with him giving a platform to someone who says Sandy Hook was fake, the parents who lost children are actors, and they should be harassed into admitting as much. Nothing good comes from giving a guy like that more attention, power, and money by having him on the show.
Agreed, but the least you could do is link to examples of him saying those things, since it's all recorded we don't need to rely on biased third-party reports.
I love how you resort to the "many people feel" standard with a hand wave. Many people where I live feel that cell phone towers give them cancer so we need to get rid of the cell phone towers on that burden of proof. Many people feel like the moon landing was faked. Many people think educating women is heretical. Shall we surrender to them as well?
Delegating judgment to other people is weak and cowardly. Feel free to form your own opinions based on your observation of the facts but it's disgusting to come in here and say "many people".
Isn't Joe Rogan one of those people? Hasn't he had at least three moon landing deniers on his podcast and agreed with them?
I've listened to quite a few Rogan podcasts, I have never heard anything overly objectionable. (I have heard some stuff that was maybe critical of some parts of my own life, but I was ok with it.) Rogan is very entertaining, you might try some and see if you like it.
Also: I've found that I sometimes find podcasts featuring people I completely disagree with. I find that when I listen to these, I frequently learn interesting things. I'm sometimes offended a bit, but I knew that going in. I may be fooling myself, but I think it's making me a more well-rounded person.
A professor being canceled for saying e.g. that male and female brains are anatomically different, or worse, that non-binary genders is not a thing, has more to do with something else than culture/norms.
That something else is an interesting subject which has actually been discussed on JRE. :)
The brief period in time during which enlightenment values were held in higher regard.
> How is Spotify deleting episodes from their own platform tyranny?
The parent comment referred to staff within large tech companies. Anecdotally I hear plenty of stories about how activists have essentially bullied their way into positions of influence at some of the large tech companies, particularly to influence these types of decisions. Perhaps it is a coincidence in this case.
If you don't like it, don't sell your rights away, and go somewhere else. That's how free societies work. Private citizen can lobby, workers can protest, customers can boycott, and everyone's free to start their own venture with their own rules, that's how you deal with it.
If by new you mean new to the Roman Republic, sure. But pretty much every politician from the first kings and village elders justified what they did, good or bad, as part of the fight for righteousness.
Cowardly HR departments who don't recognize that, by and large, the activist employees are mediocre at best, rather than remotely productive employees, has made things worse. Also, companies like Spotify seem to spawn an odd lack of self-awareness amongst many employees about how utterly replaceable they actually are. Spotify is a video and audio streaming service. There isn't anything novel about that anymore, as proved by how rapidly HBO and Disney were able to roll out platforms which do the same thing.
Even worse, the HR don't recognize this either.
I can personally attest to the fact that the new CEO who was my last straw at my last gig care far more about his personal reputation at his Marin County country club than the bottom line for the shareholders. He acted accordingly, and the board of directors also care far more about their reputations.
This feels like you're projecting your opinion of these people and their political beliefs (which it appears you disagree with) onto their entire character and acting as if your opinion of them is the reality of the situation. Are there activist employees that are poor performers? Probably. But it feels more like you're trying to paint an entire subset of employees negatively because you disagree with their political stances.
I don't actually disagree with a lot of the goals of the activist employees at my former Boulder-based tech company. I simply disagree with them using the HR department to impose their views and beliefs onto the majority of employees who don't want it, in a way that becomes disruptive and distracting from making money. At the end of the quarter, the assholes in charge who wouldn't shut up about equity are still making hundreds of times what the average employee makes, and will fire anyone if the numbers aren't what they promised in the earnings forecast. The social justice initiatives seem to be designed to turn the rank and file against each other, instead of having them ask if their CEO is really worth 300 software engineers in value to the company.
This is why it spreads so fast. You have one person who is loud, assertive and aggressive. And most people just want to avoid politics so they nod their heads.
What's "dangerous" is the intolerance of thought that permeates society right now. We seem to have lost the ability to listen and then respond.
I always thought Joe Rogan might be more of an Art Bell-type personality. Personality, not authority.
I guess that song is older than Rogan's podcast episodes, and music isn't usually as serious as a podcast. But still kinda funny they remove Joe Rogan episodes, but allows songs talking about how they won't be friend with gay people.
Still enjoy the song though.