Doctors call out Spotify for letting Joe Rogan spread ‘false and harmful’ claims
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
I don't give a damn if someone is wrong. I listen to people who are wrong all the time because that's the only way to sometimes find out if you are wrong yourself.
If you read the letter from these doctors, which is linked to in the WP article, all it does is assert that Malone's positions are wrong and dangerous. Are they? Is the fact that you can find a variety of doctors to openly disagree with Malone actually worth something?
In actuality, the list of individuals who signed this open letter is padded; I see a nurse practitioner, a science teacher, a PhD student, a medical student, a registered nurse, a nurse practitioner, another registered nurse, a licensed clinical worker... I could go on and on.
So is my ability to listen to people to be dictated by nurse practitioners and med school students? Get real.
When people aren't allowed to hear different opinions or contrary facts, and they aren't supposed to make their own decision that deviates from the mainstream in any way, they are cattle.
Although this was pretty much the only JRE episode I bothered to listen to on Spotify in quite some time, I hope Spotify ignores this tripe.
Getting real, I would venture that they have a much better understanding of coronavirus than this comedian interviewer.
You're also blowing it way out of proportion: it's not about a nurse dictating who you're allowed to listen to, it's about a group of people that know stuff about medicine being against this popular guy spreading misinformation specifically about vaccinations and covid.
It is however, about them dictating what you can hear:
>the group is pushing for the company to do more to prevent further misinformation from spreading on what is considered the nation’s most popular podcast
per the article, "Rogan, whose show reaches an estimated audience of 11 million people an episode, has repeatedly downplayed the need for coronavirus vaccines and used his platform to flirt with misinformation about covid-19."
So I shouldn't have a problem with continuing to pay Spotify for removing content I want access to? In what universe should that not concern me? I don't want to go to another platform, because that's precisely why I pay Spotify, so that I have to do that as little as possible.
Is it? Or is it saying that a hugely popular platform shouldn't amplify false information likely to cause harm?
I don't see any call for government intervention or regulation.
There is a common myth of consensus flat earth in the past, created and perpetuated by people who claimed they were "enlightened."
Yes.
To point one not directly related to COVID/vaccines, I was particularly surprised by his claims that strokes in children are zero (and that basically all paediatric strokes are caused by COVID vaccines).
In actual paediatric medicine, stroke is among the top 10 causes of death in children, precisely because people think it doesn't happen, so even though the symptoms are well known, the required medical attention is fatally delayed.
I'm nit defending Rogan but I am defending my ability to get all viewpoints I can.
Somehow Malone didn't have time to put on a paper the claims that got him banned from Twitter. That should be enough food for thought about such claims.
> they did not cite/refute any specific misinformation.
It's an open letter, not a rebuttal. Google Malone fact check for rebuttals, focus only on those by other experts if you want. I just gave above one piece of misinformation that literally kills children, it's easy to verify.
I'm more interested in hearing arguments supported by evidence than having blind, lemminglike faith in self-proclaimed experts.
LOL. Your submissions include biblicalscienceinstitute.com and crev.info
Is benpiper.com your website? That site has a list of websites titled "Science" that include Creation.com:
https://benpiper.com/free-resources/#science
I'm so glad that religiosity is declining and that crazies like you are being marginalized more and more every day.
What about they say something even more egregious like “seatbelt laws are against freedom and they do more harm than good and so we should stand up against them?”
I dont care either way. But i think its not clear.
Nutrition is a prime example of where the Approved Facts have been wrong and have likely lead to earlier deaths for people and industry lobbies promoting their poisons. All of these supposed "facts" have been widely considered true in my lifetime:
"Don't eat fat because fat just clogs your arteries just like when you pour it down the drain. Eat plenty of low fat foods, and replace saturated fat with industrial seed oils."
"Sugar is just energy you burn off. It's pure calories!"
"Calcium builds strong bones! Therefore, you can never drink enough cow's milk."
"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day! You shouldn't skip breakfast even if you're not hungry."
"If you don't eat then you'll starve, your body will go into starvation mode, and your metabolism will crash!"
"Salt just raises your blood pressure! Never add salt to your food and only eat things that are low in sodium. The less sodium the better."
"If you eat too much protein then you'll destroy your kidneys. High protein diets are bad for you."
"Distilled water will weaken your bones and you won't get enough minerals! Never drink distilled water."
---
Although attitudes towards such ideas have been changing significantly, in my life I've had teachers, professors, and even doctors tell me these things. And they're all essentially wrong for the average healthy non-elderly person. There was enough scientific data available in my lifetime that authorities should have known better.
The only way that I was able to come to the conclusion that the bulk of generic health advice is wrong was that contrary information was available to me, even though you can almost certainly still find a horde of medical experts to say that I'm wrong.
If I couldn't hear facts and opinions that went against the mainstream, I'd probably still be overweight with prehypertension and possibly prediabetes. By now I'd be in even worse condition.
To say that people should only be allowed to hear the mainstream facts is the same as saying that you should only listen to health advice approved by Coca-Cola.
And yes, to a certain extent, there's natural selection. The idea that you can save everyone from themselves is the same as saying that we can bend the law of averages so that bell distributions no longer apply.
How is saturated fat from "industrial" animal farms or "industrial" palm farms any worse than unsaturated fat from "industrial seed oils"?
>"Calcium builds strong bones! Therefore, you can never drink enough cow's milk."
The first part seems true, the second part seems like a strawman just so you can debunk it.
>"If you don't eat then you'll starve, your body will go into starvation mode, and your metabolism will crash!"
Again, first part seems objectively true (unless you can photosynthesize or something), the second part seems like a strawman.
>"Distilled water will weaken your bones and you won't get enough minerals! Never drink distilled water."
The first part seems to be true? See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distilled_water#Health_effects. All else being equal, you'll get less minerals by drinking distilled water than without. You can certainly adjust/supplement your diet so it's not an issue, but that doesn't mean the effect isn't there. As for the second part, it seems to be either a strawman or a general advice taken out of context. I interpret it not as "not drinking distilled water ever" (like it's poisonous or something), but that there's no real reason to go out of your way to specifically buy distilled water to drink.
If you say something society considers awful, other private firms and citizens are well within their right to shun you.
The problem with Rogan is that he's actively advertised despite being a ridiculous moron who peddles conspiracies just to sound contrarian
For reference: https://spotifyopenletter.wordpress.com/2022/01/10/an-open-l...
But COVID Rogan is something else entirely. He’s gone pure contrarian conspiracy theorist on everything. Many of the things he’s saying are easily disprovable and his guests are even telling him he’s wrong, but he won’t let it go. It’s sad that this is one of the most popular podcasts out there. Stunning that he’s piping misinformation directly to so many people.
His conspiracies aren’t even logically consistent. For example, he’s a proponent of monoclonal antibodies because he received them, but strictly against the vaccine because he didn’t. He claims “they” are withholding the monoclonal antibodies to drive more people to the vaccine, while shrugging off the fact that both are made by “big pharma” (in some cases the same companies), and that monoclonal antibodies are orders of magnitude more expensive and more difficult to make.
It’s worth noting that Rogan used to be deep into moon landing conspiracies. He mentions on his show a few times how he now sees the error of his ways. Perhaps some people just have tendencies for conspiracy and it was only a matter of time before another took hold.
""It’s been nearly two years now and my confidence in publicly funded science is completely destroyed. I don’t believe anyone reasonably intelligent can read the COVID literature and come out the other side without concluding that universities and governments cannot tell the difference between science and scientism. Our society is completely in the grip of people who have effectively evolved under selection pressure to strongly resemble scientists without actually being scientists. Their work looks roughly right from a distance - there are data tables, charts, equations - but when you sit down and read it the scientific method has gone AWOL. I am now explicitly open to counter-narrative claims I’d never have previously considered."
edit: looking for the actual reference here [0] it appears that it is an embedded quote, not the author. Please confirm for yourselves
[0] https://eugyppius.substack.com/p/what-convinced-you-containm...
Simple common sense comparison of the % of vaccinated people ending up in the hospital with COVID vs unvaccinated ending up in the hospital with COVID is all you need to see the vaccine works.
mAB do work too but only if you test for covid and use it within the first 5 days or at least 10 days of illness.
Does he have a name? What has he published before? Is he even an expert in the field?
The vaccine unquestionably reduces severe infection, hospitalization, and death. It’s not even a question at this point.
I suppose this is why Rogan’s anti-vaccine conspiracy drivel thrives despite not even being logically self-consistent: There’s an appetite for contrarian information, and those who enjoy this contrarianism will unquestionably absorb anything, no matter how illogical, as long as it’s contrarian.
https://swprs.org/professor-ehud-qimron-ministry-of-health-i...
If I may, this claim alone is the rallying cry of the anti vax movement - the original reasons given for emergency use was vaccines prevented infection for 90% of patients.
Anyone who took a quick look at the study knew that was bonkers… the methods obviously (and confirmed in hindsight) weren’t controlled properly and don’t support a reduced infection claim…
So the narrative shifted to preventing hospitalization - so the value given by not getting Covid is gone… you will get covid it just won’t be as bad.
Well now we are in the lottery effect where everyone believes they will be the one to beat the odds…
The vaccine does prevent serious infection for the majority of patients.
Deaths are so much higher in unvaccinated COVID patients that it's not even a close question. The vaccine works.
Agreed that vaccines prevent serious infection.
Absolute Risk Reduction = 1·3% for the AstraZeneca– Oxford, 1·2% for the Moderna–NIH, 1·2% for the J&J, 0·93% for the Gamaleya, and 0·84% for the Pfizer– BioNTech vaccines.
[1] https://eugyppius.substack.com/p/what-convinced-you-containm...
Subliminal advertising doesn't work, but this truly does. I wonder if we'll treat it the same way. The FCC issued a warning to broadcasters in 1971:
> We believe that the use of subliminal perception is inconsistent with the obligations of a licensee, and therefore we take this occasion to make clear that broadcasts employing such techniques are contrary to the public interest. Whether effective or not, such broadcasts clearly are intended to be deceptive.
The Spotify move and perhaps the 100m that came with it have seen him interject a lot more of his own opinions though.
I’ll still tune in if the guest is great. But I find myself wishing joe would bite his lip far more often than before.
Bad publicity is publicity, and then it's money.
Facts and reality are not linked to money.
Hank Green tweeted about this.
That's the reality of the internet now: lies are more profitable. Everyone wants an underground, alternative source of information.
The last Rhonda Patrick episode was specially hard to watch. I guess it's the last time she's going to be on.
I'm listening more to Lex Fridman these days, even though he's had Weinstein on recently...
That's the only recent one I've tried to listen to, and I agree. You could tell she was trying not to upset Rogan, but she was also completely uncomfortable with what he was saying.
She later posted a long follow-up on her own website to try to correct the misinformation. What a sad situation.
We’re in a global heath crisis and the average people have been convinced that they need to be concerned about big pharma’s “bottom line” instead of doing what’s best for humanity.
Millions of lives are being ruined by pandemic response measures and you’re arguing that we can’t give out life saving treatments because it’s too costly. We’re sacrificing the average person’s (already somewhat poor) quality of life to spare big corporations the cost of making a positive contribution to the world.
In a world where we have political leadership that is deserving of trust these corporations would have had their freedoms trampled first instead the common person. Instead they’re posting record profits while the rest of us suffer.
The hardest thing for me to swallow is millions of people are ok with this and support it! Without any personal gain they’ll preach the good word of our modern oligarchy and shame dissenters. Seemingly out of nowhere “big pharma” can do no wrong and is above reproach.
You know that pharma companies aren't literally paying for their own treatments out of their own pockets, right?
The government and insurance companies are paying the pharma companies to produce these things. It would be the pharma companies' dream come true if the government paid them thousands of dollars for monoclonal antibodies for every patient instead of a < $20 vaccine.
This is what I meant when I said that the conspiracy theories aren't even logically consistent. Baffling that you think the pharmaceutical companies don't want to produce the more expensive drug.
Yes that is my entire point. The average person is paying out of pocket for this pandemic and you’re saying we can’t force corporations to do the same.
Anyway, what if it just too costly vs. vaccinating early? Rogan says he won't take the vaccine but then takes, like any rich person would, a giant concoction of experimental treatments. That probably doesn't scale when you can have thousands of cases a day in even a relatively small area.
For context, each dose of most of the covid vaccines is about $40 while a round of monocolonal antibody treatment is around $1,500. The vaccine has a dramatic effect in limiting the affects of covid and (as far as I a non-doctor know) stack with monoclonal antibodies if needed. Its just dramatically cheaper if people are vaccinated and not as many people need this treatment.
Also vaccines as those we have today are recurrent revenue: one shot every 6 / 12 months?
This is what it means to live in a country - you pay to raise the overall quality of life for your fellow citizens, which has an uplift effect on you as well.
I've lived in the US and couldn't believe how ghastly, confusing, expensive and irritating the alternative to nationalised healthcare is. Very happy to be back in Australia, and I will cheerfully continue to pay taxes for the benefit of my fellow citizens.
Per the last one: The FOI lawsuit pertaining to FDA approval (follow Aaron Siri) already revealed in the first 2.5 months of the rollout that Pfzier received 130k case incidents of adverse events. VAERS shows staggering incidents of disability and death, and he's spoken with many physicians who believe there's useful signal from VAERS like there has been for over 30 years. A bunch of countries have now slapped myocarditis warnings on either Pfzier or Moderna. He talks about the 15+ people he knows who have had serious reactions after second dose or booster including his friend's daughter who's now dead. Our family friend here died after booster. The articles about european footballers dropping on the field from cardiac issues (greater than previous 20 years combined) is a signal too. He even had a guest talk about fake vax card going around in Hollywood because many celebrities/people of means don't want to risk it. There's plenty of other statistical or otherwise anecdotal signals that you can hear about if you decide to listen to his show, or you can follow dozens of other people on substacks who track these issues. But please go ahead and disprove all of it.
These may be very rare and cherry picked examples but they still don't make me want to give him any more of my time.
I don't think they're properly evaluating the distrust created by banning such information. People have far less trust for the pro-vaccine data when they are aware that they do not have equal access to the alternative data. This is amplified when the "misinformation" label is routinely expanded to include not just the contested details, but whole conversations that include things like data directly from the CDC and FDA that other sources do not. Yet the bans are the opposite of surgical.
But I think that the worse thing is that people hear the horror stories by word of mouth, over and over again. I certain have. But in the current environment, where online discussion of those stories is suppressed, they do not hear the frequently convincing and valuable rebuttals, because those are often suppressed too for including the claims they are rebutting.
"Shut up" is not a persuasive rhetorical technique.
That's exactly what I was thinking while reading that sentence. Gee, doctors are calling to not provoke distrust in doctors? I'm 100% on the doctors' side in this debate, but I am not part of the group that is being mislead. I can only imagine how this sounds to someone who is not sure about trusting doctors and common news outlets.
It has grown from early mild assertion into a politically grounded smug movement who loves calling out, cancelling, and mocking those who dont share their world view.
All if that is more or less what you can except for any politically fraction to seize on. Churches, Guilds whatever is an entity seeking to control speech
The real terror is in the fact that a large part of the population do not only tolerate it, but to some extent reinforces it and welcomes it.
In times when society is going through something dramatic and frighting demagogs pop out of their caverns and hope to become the prophet.
For a fraction to decide and dictate to all what is truth may perhaps start benign but it will metastasize and corrupt into a autocratic demand for the population to conform unquestionably to the prescribed dogma.
This is never healthy for society, and the longer it is allowed to grow. It will grow. This type of dictatorial power does not reach a steady state, it grows into every crevice of society. The conflict that arises from society ridding itself of it can become something similar to a civil war.
In the US today there are two (major) fractions that claim to hold the truth. If you do not adhere fully with one side, you will be labelled as a traitor and belonging to the other side.
This again creates an Overton window where the public is led to believe that these two views are the only views that exist. Black and white. Your sports team vs mine. etc.
This has to stop and the only ones who can stop it are the people. Thankfully we do not have to live our lives with a radio that has only one channel (or in this case perhaps two) We dont have to give our adherence to one or the other. We can make the choice to ignore them.
There's a difference between self discovery of content vs when a platform highlights one above others.
What would a Spotify misinformation policy look like? Who decides what misinformation is?
In March 2020 telling people to wear masks was misinformation. A month later telling people not to wear masks was misinformation. I always prefer receiving my misinformation earlier rather than later.
Rogan's misinformation isn't even vague or subtle, it's just completely wrong. His own guests and his own podcast runner even call him out on it in real-time (when they can):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4oRlqPntY8&t=10s
He's pushing blatant nonsense that he picked up from who knows where, and it's not even a question. Much of it can be debunked by literally just checking anything.
People have trouble understanding why his show is popular and what his role in it is. He's not a news anchor, a public radio host, or a broadcaster attempting to communicate information to the public. He's an approximately regular guy having long form conversations with interesting people.
In conversations people are often wrong and people often say BS things and get called out for it. And Joe Rogan says BS things and gets called out for it. That's not shocking or a gotcha about his show. It's not a bug, it's a feature.
People tune in because they get to sit in on interesting conversations that usually don't have a particular "I came on here to say" agenda. And when the reverse is the case, those episodes are heavily panned and usually those guests are not invited back.
Enjoying this type of media means putting up with plenty of BS from any given side on any given day, and doing one's own research.
If somebody isn't willing to do their own research and is instead prepared to believe anything Joe Rogan or his guests say at face value, then that's a problem for them far larger than anything they might encounter on his podcast.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01630-0.pdf
Vinay Prasad talks about this extensively. Here is one of his posts. It's also more of a risk for Pfizer, depending on the sex, age and dose.
https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/uk-now-reports-myoca...
No, it’s actually a higher risk from COVID in every age group and gender, tracked all the way down to as narrow as 2-year age group buckets.
The risk of COVID myocarditis is higher everywhere.
> Neither side can make a complete blanket statement. It depends on age and which vaccine you take.
It varies, but COVID is worse in every bracket still. By a significant margin.
These things are tracked. Unless you’re arguing for some sort of conspiratorial coverup, it’s just not true.
Another piece of evidence. We have multiple countries that have significantly altered vaccine doses for young males or have completely prohibited using specific vaccines for certain groups. They cite the increased risk of myocarditis and other heart issues.
Can you please cite your sources? The main study I can think to support your position is the CDC study that used vaers data, but it's highly disputed.
You can't just yell conspiracy at people. You must have evidence.
Edit - This post summaries the issue well. https://ravarora.substack.com/p/the-truth-about-vaccine-indu...
We are doing real harm to people. I have no doubt in the future there will be federal funded compensation and healthcare schemes for victims. Similar to how we compensate and provide medical care for victims for nuclear related atrocities. My grandpa was one of many harmed while working at a uranium processing facility, after the DOE guaranteed its safety. He basically battled cancer all over his body for decades. I tell this story as an example of government deception, lies and media narratives that led to many many deaths and injuries. We aren't any wiser today than we were back then.
Also Joe Rogan: “(I) threw the kitchen sink at it, all kinds of meds, (including) monoclonal antibodies, ivermectin, Z-Pak, prednisone — everything. I also got an NAD drip and a vitamin drip, and I did that three days in a row. Here we are on Wednesday, and I feel great.”
By your logic, if a doctor smokes cigarettes, then their health advice to be patients is bunk. Perhaps the same could be said of a fat doctor. That analogy is of course not comparable, but it's similar enough on a judgmental level.
Joe isn’t 21 he is in his mid 50’s and although in likely a far better shape than most people at his age and even a large portion of those in their 20’s it’s a different case.
Also his initial statement was about getting a vaccine not about treating the disease.
On an individual case basis the risk of vaccination might be higher than not getting a vaccination (again not claiming it’s true) however as far as the wider public health is concerned reaching herd immunity is important especially when you account for secondary effects like mental health and financial stability which all have an impact on one’s overall health.
Honestly the pandemic really made me think on and reconsider my positions on many issues.
For example I normally i would be for mandatory vaccinations for children and in fact I did and probably still do consider it child abuse if parents refuse to vaccinate theirs.
This however does not line up with the fact that other than for healthcare and social care workers I’m in general against vaccine mandates because I think it’s a step too far. I don’t think that the specific impact in this case is that terrible I just have major concerns when the state can force people to undergo medical procedures against their will.
And as of yet I still haven’t been able to reconcile these two positions. And I don’t know if reasoning like Polio is far worse than COVID is enough to reconcile this.
I mean if this was the Zombie apocalypse would I support the execution of those who won’t get vaccinated? Would we drop napalm on neighborhoods that have a low vaccination rate to save the rest?