Spotify is removing Neil Young’s music after falling out over Joe Rogan | Hacker News Reader

Spotify is removing Neil Young’s music after falling out over Joe Rogan

techcrunch.com

334 pointsFinnKuhn973 comments

I like the JRE. I like that he listens to everyone and engages with them. The world could do with more of that rather than this tribalism shit.

On one of his recent podcasts, he supports fox news keeping it's guests from specific no-no topics because they don't want to loose their credibility.

The irony, obviously, being that Joe should also keep his guests and himself away from certain no-no topics. That's the thing though. Joe doesn't see himself as a credible news source, a voice of a movement, or any of those other things because accuse him of. It's mainly just him hanging out with his buddies smoke'n (sometimes literally) and joke'n.

That's the entertaining and appeal of the show.

Edit

It's my fault for grouping them into the same sentence, but I didn't claim (or mean to) that his show is just junk entertainment because it's just people talking. My claim is that's the appeal of the format.

He obviously has credible and knowledgeable guests on his show. I said Joe doesn't see himself as a news source or a voice of a movement. Martial arts, working out, and DMT, however, yes he probably thinks of himself as someone to take advice from there.

I think this hits at the heart of the issue though - you don't get to, as a public figure, decide whether or not you are "the voice of a movement". In mass media today, influencers and other people of note who don't have advanced degrees should be doing their research - from credible sources - so they're not spouting inaccuracies and falsehoods to their followers.

Joe Rogan doesn't need to do these things if he's just "hanging out with his buddies smoke'n" but he also doesn't have an obligation to have provocateurs and hacks like robert malone or ben shapiro on his show. He does it because he knows his fanbase will listen to it, ingest the information, and then speak it as fact to their friends and family - and THAT is where the danger comes in. Furthermore, he also knows that parts of his fanbase will go wild to see their fringe views espoused by a guest on their favorite podcast, without Joe challenging them to back their claims up with facts. I'm sure he also knows that his listeners skew young and male, and impressionable young men have been radicalized to a dangerous degree on the internet. Having the same views on his podcast as conspiracy theory sites, for example, will undoubtedly make it easier for the bad actors running these sites to radicalize JRE listeners (who will then, of course, become a part of the fanbase that loves when their theories are given time on his show in some perverse feedback loop).

He has also inked a deal with the largest music streaming service in the world for more money than any of us will see in our entire lives - at that point I don't think you can even say he's just "hanging out" any more. It's facetious at best, and wilfully negligent at worst, to assume that no one thinks of him as an authority figure, because even if he's playing the everyman character his guests profess to be authority figures in their fields. If he doesn't seriously challenge their false claims or ask for evidence from credible sources, he's doing his listeners a disservice.

> That's the thing though. Joe doesn't see himself as a credible news source, a voice of a movement, or any of those other things because accuse him of

When you have an audience numbering in the millions, and have a long term presence (unlike old school radio), you are a news source, whether you like it or not.

And you have a responsibility to be careful with your words, whether you want it or not.

In this age of boundless social media, where what is true, what is false and what is mis-leading is non-existent, it is pertinent for people like JRE to absolutely not go into topic they don't know or knowledgeable about.

I would really like to see him bring on Dr. Fauci, and have a good listen to him.

While that is true about Joe and the show that doesn't completely paint the whole picture either. Actually it really leaves out the key part of the whole picture.

Irregardless of what Joe says about himself and the show being nothing more than a bunch of idiotic guys talking, the truth of the matter is he does have credible and subject matter experts come on his show and talk and give their viewpoint on their area of expertise.

However when those experts come on and they go against the MSM narrative then the focus becomes about Joe and his silly tactics as a way to dismiss or downplay the counter views for some.

Does he really "Listen to everyone"? Or does he give more of a platform to the more outlandish while not really getting scientists in?

You can claim he giving another side to the "Mainstream media", but does he give in depth interviews with scientists who are little more than quotes in the media? or is he more focused on giving the "Other side"

Eg, he just had that idiot Peterson spouting climate rubbish, has he had credible climate scientists on his show?

Joe Rogan isn't as fair and balanced with his guests as you're giving him credit for. He doesn't equally listen to "everyone" or have "everyone" on his show. When was the last time Joe had a pro-vaccine expert on his show to ask them about the real science of vaccines? It doesn't happen.

Edit: Apparently he had Peter Attila on who is pro-vaccine, but that's hardly a leading expert on the topic, and there's still a clear bias in the guests Joe invites to his show.

> It's mainly just him hanging out with his buddies smoke'n (sometimes literally) and joke'n.

> That's the entertaining and appeal of the show.

Facebook's press releases talk just like that. They also pretend to be "neutral".

But Rogan, Facebook and Spotify made choices with repercussions and consequences. They just don't want to bear responsibility/accountability for those consequences.

And, no, I don't use both Facebook or Spotify.

Agreed.

The corporate media attacks on him make no sense to me.

It's a freaking podcast where he talks about sports, hunting, UFOs, the supernatural, comedians, ai, and yes conspiracy theory.

I enjoy the variety and the wild topics.

Ironic because Fox News has zero credibility. Their prime time anchor Tucker Carlson won against slander charges in court by arguing that he does not state actual facts and instead engages in exaggeration and non-literal commentary. They are clearly a mouthpiece for one of two sides, like other “news” organizations.

And since the beginning of Covid Joe Rogan has stopped being just a dude who hangs out and smokes with his buddies, something I used to love about the show. He is constantly and consistently political, making medical claims and other kinds of claims that are nonsensical. He’s started favoring certain types of guests, and avoiding the friends who call him out.

I used to argue vehemently that free speech can be infringed upon under no circumstance. I still will. But now I see the “other side” more clearly, that is, where is the line when someone has one of the largest platforms in the world and uses it to spread dangerous misinformation? He’s way past just some dude. I have friends who take what he says as gospel, because they want to learn how to be men and Joe is a man’s man. At the same time, he does make good arguments in favor of discourse, hearing different viewpoints, etc. so how do we handle this?

Joe Rogan is a useful idiot for grifters who know that he won't seriously challenge them for what they're saying under the guise of "hey it's just fun" and "hey I'm just letting them say their piece." He is a perhaps a good conversationalist for engaging with and listening to his guests, but he is a poor interviewer and, unless he's in on the con, a poor judge of character.

> he listens to everyone and engages with them

Yeah, in a very specific meaning of "listen to everyone", as in he clearly listened to the people advocating Ivermectin to trait covid but not the vaccine, which to me seems like tribalism as such decision is not based on listening to anyone making a bit of sense.

This is the same defense Jon Stewart always used. "It's a comedy show". I'm not sure whether you're a credible news source absolves you of responsibility of spreading harmful misinformation. He has a huge platform and a huge voice. What he does isn't illegal but it's definitely not the most moral behavior.

My take on this this is it has nothing to do with Joe Rogan, Neil Young, or Spotify.

The mainstream media push against podcasting is really a fight to hold for their power.

People who think they have the power to tell people "what's going on" are annoyed that a mere "podcaster" can also do the same nowadays. It's pretty interesting when you start to notice the derogatory tone mainstream-media celebrities use when talking about podcasts. The idea that some rando (in their mind) can just skirt the whole path they suffered through to get where they are, and have enough power to have their say and affect people's mind. People in this group include people like Don Lemon, Chris Cuomo, Matt Lauer, Jake Tapper, etc...

Those television journalists have it in their mind that they're the authority, and their authority is being challenged now by the fact that a podcaster is becoming more and more of a big-shot.

It's pretty much the same push initially against youtube, social-media, and possibly even the internet, before corporate media managed to find a way to use those tools to their benefit. This also explains the push for monitoring, regulating (aka controlling) what's being said via this medium.

Mainstream media is not just TV "journalism", but also the rapidly deteriorating online/print journalism:

- https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/the-challenge-of-detect...

- https://theguardian.com/media/2020/dec/12/sinister-sounds-po...

- https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/7/22821823/joe-rogan-media-...

Funny, I associate podcasts with deep, meaningful well researched news coverage. A good example are the Jupiter Broadcasting podcasts [0], I have learned so much. And they actively shy away from knee jerking, meaning that if a news worthy event is still young (and it's just shouting on twitter) they will either report very minimally and let it play out while researching further or not report on it for now. I so appreciate this, it just feels so balanced, I just know that if there is drama, I get a nice explanation about what happened in a coupled of days.

Also, for the Dutch speaking, Nerdland Maandoverzicht [Nerd land month overview]. Brilliant, in depth with scientists who know their stuff and a lot of humor as well. [1]

[0]: https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/

[1]: https://maandoverzicht.nerdland.be/

> The idea that some rando (in their mind) can just skirt the whole path they suffered through to get where they are

Joe Rogan has been on national television since the '90s. He paid his dues too. That fact is a wrench in the works of your argument, as it applies to this specific dispute.

I completely agree. To me the idea that the people in positions of power or authority are principled and really concerned about misinformation - about covid or anything else - is laughable. And that goes for the managers at Spotify, media personalities, celebrities of any kind, etc.

> Those television journalists have it in their mind that they're the authority, and their authority is being challenged now by the fact that a podcaster is becoming more and more of a big-shot.

Same thing is happening in print journalism with substack.

"The mainstream media push against podcasting is really a fight to hold for their power."

So Neil Young represents mainstream media?

As far as I can tell, this was a personal initiative from Neil Young, so your points against the arrogance of mainstream media people might be legit, but with no connection to this case.

I’m only talking about the narrative around the whole “we need to shut Joe up”. I have no interest or idea in why Neil Young himself thought it’d be a good idea to get himself into this, at least in this manner.

Well, aren't we all pawns of some narrative, it's something we all cannot deny. Neil believed in mainstream media so he made his move to "defend" the narrative as a tribal instinct. I think Neil should have invited Joe to a podcast to discuss his grievances, rather than just raise an ultimatum.

Showing an openness to discussion would have been so much better for his case.

>It's pretty interesting when you start to notice the derogatory tone mainstream-media celebrities use when talking about podcasts

It becomes really obvious when the podcaster is a professional analyst for that subject and doing the podcast as a side gig. They'd have the same type of person saying the same thing as a guest but they're being a whiny jerks because said person isn't on their platform answering their cherry picked questions.

Joe Rogan is mainstream media. He’s not some “rando” sticking it to the man. He’s not some guy with a mic and a laptop recording a show and putting it online. He was famous before he started podcasting and he’s getting paid millions of dollars by a corporation to speak exclusively on their platform. The true con in all of this is that Joe Rogan has managed to convince so many people he’s just like them. He’s horoscopes and crystals for people who think they’re intellectuals.

Going after the listeners' intelligence is petty and arrogant.

I frequently get annoyed at Joe and as an interviewer I think he got worse over time (perhaps ego). But I respect immensely that

- He stands for free speech and freedom of the arts. And has always done so consistently.

- He still comes out often to admit he is wrong or just an idiot on some topic.

- He has never called for the censorship of anyone else, in stark contrast to figures like Don Lemon, Rachel Maddow.

- Finally, he has on a variety of guests, his interview with Bernie Sanders was great, and the first time I understood more nuanced ideas of his politics.

> He’s not some “rando” sticking it to the man. He’s not some guy with a mic and a laptop recording a show and putting it online.

That's the point. He's not a rando anymore but he absolutely was (at least as a talkshow host). Joe was indeed "some guy with a mic and a laptop recording the show" as you describe (here, check the first episode https://www.facebook.com/JoeRoganClips/videos/the-very-first..., sorry for FB link, but I can't find it anywhere anymore).

> he’s getting paid millions of dollars by a corporation to speak exclusively on their platform

He may be getting paid a lot for his show by Spotify, but he's no corporate media. From what I see he's still as genuine as he was before the exclusive deal. Joe has a family and he made it big, which pissed off the "we tell the population what to believe" crowd.

> He’s horoscopes and crystals for people who think they’re intellectuals.

What this tells me is that you haven't listened to that show at all. You couldn't be more wrong on this, it's pretty much as far away from that type of BS as it can get. Mainstream media is at this point the horoscope/crystal people.

> He’s horoscopes and crystals for people who think they’re intellectuals.

I quite disagree. But say thats true, so what? Whether he's some rando or not, we should be able to choose who we want to listen to. Shout out to the "muh private company" peeps. I know you're out there

Why do you consider him mainstream, because he has a million+ viewers?

>He’s horoscopes and crystals for people who think they’re intellectuals.

In all honesty, I think you're proving the point that online hatred needs to be curbed before it becomes overwhelmingly destructive to society. Who are these people who so obviously wrongly think of themselves as intellectuals, in your mind, when they really are nothing of the sort? ALL of Joe Rogans listeners, or just the ones opposed to government-enforced medical procedures?

> The true con in all of this is ..

.. is that its possible to espouse hatred (calling Joe Rogan a con, people 'think they are intellectuals', etc.) for an out-group and not be called to task over the reasoning behind that hatred.

Do you hate Joe Rogan because he's mainstream, or because he espouses a view that is not mainstream while appearing to be a mainstream media personality? How is it possible to hold both positions?

Personally, I am not pro-Joe Rogan, I enjoy his podcasts but don't agree with his personality and find his views on some things utterly intolerable, but I am anti-hate speech, which we have seen has allowed the commitment and further justification of so many actual crimes in Americas' socio-political environment recently. Surely there comes a time in every American's mind where they need to balance the strength of their states freedom-granting instruments (the Bill of Rights) with their desire to tone-police the cultures they don't like into oblivion... isn't this how the Iraq/Afghanistan/Libya/Syria/Yemen mess got started in the first place - Americans deciding they don't like the voices of some out-group?

"intellectuals"? his audience is mostly dudebros.

He is mainstream media to the extent of the mainstream media's obsession with covering him.

Was Donald Trump a mainstream politician? He was president!

No one is listening to him bc he was on Fear Factor.

It's exactly what NY asked. He didn't do it as a means to let Spotify drop Joe Rogan, but he did it out of principle. I applaud him for that.

What a bizarre comment. He most definitely did do it in hopes of forcing Spotify to drop Rogan. Appearing on the same streaming platform as Rogan costs him nothing (neither financial nor moral). Nobody believes that he and Rogan share beliefs just because they're both on Spotify.

If his principles are that he won't be streamed on the same app as somebody he disagrees with, that's seriously pathetic. He's literally the polar opposite of the coexist bumper sticker.

The other comment said it best. Also, note that Young has dropped out of Spotify before. He made a hue and cry about its audio quality, dropped out, launched his own music player, it didn't do very well, and then he came back.

I feel like he just wanted an excuse to leave, to be very honest, so he could promote competitors that encourage high-quality streaming.

He most definitely did do it in hopes of forcing Spotify to drop Rogan.

No - he did it because he has FY money and FY reputation.

And if doesn't want to be associated with a platform he doesn't like -- he's not going to be associated with it.

He's literally the polar opposite of the coexist bumper sticker.

In the sense of not wanting to "coexist" with the vapid corporate opportunism as exemplified by Spotify, you're completely right.

Yes, the title of the article is misleading. It's not Spotify that is removing Neil Young, it's Neil Young removing his music from Spotify as a protest against them hosting Joe Rogan.

It's kind of annoying to me that Spotify went all in with podcasts (in the name of "growth"?), and promotes them so heavily. That's really different from music. Do people really decide to subscribe to Spotify because of podcasts? Would they change providers if Joe Rogan was on another service? I doubt it.

It's because they can get better margins from podcasts. Personally I want music and no podcasts but I understand the business pressures that have caused this.

Yea, he just blackmailed a platform to censor fellow content creator. Perfectly fine principled gentleman. Because that's how we all should do with each other, and the peace would come upon us

He gave them an ultimatum. An ultimatum is not blackmail.

I am not particularly fond of Joe Rogan, but I respect Rogan's principles a lot more than Neil Young. Neil Young wanted to make a political statement and the media ran with it to try to pressure Spotify into breaking a large multi-million dollar contract. Neil Young's music on Spotify is prob worth very little. I'd be surprised if Neil Young was making a $2k/mo from Spotify. Neil Young had very little to lose by making this political statement to help the media, which I'm guessing he prob got some money from the attention of pro-vax people that wanted to try to censor Rogan and thought by supporting Young that they were going to be able to have any pull.

At least 6 million monthly listens at $0.00331 per listen is about $20k per month, so you're off by an order of magnitude. Still not terrible for a wild guess based on nothing. My numbers may be wrong for all kinds of reasons. Young himself apparently said it's 60% of his streaming revenue.

https://www.google.com/url?q=https://arstechnica.com/gaming/...

https://www.planetarygroup.com/do-artists-get-paid-every-tim...

https://mobile.twitter.com/jclarachan/status/148646182068449...

>Neil Young had very little to lose by making this political statement to help the media, which I'm guessing he prob got some money from the attention of pro-vax people that wanted to try to censor Rogan and thought by supporting Young that they were going to be able to have any pull.

This was hilarious, thanks for the laugh! :)

Your anti-vax comment history indicates that you may be particularly fond of Joe Rogan.

Staying away from the tribalism this seems to be devolving into, I think this is quite telling. Neil Young’s music is some of the most important of the last century. He might not be getting K-Pop levels of streams but his music is incredibly important regardless. Spotify has chosen a podcast over this (for obvious financial reasons). This tells you a lot about the importance Spotify puts on music (in case it wasn’t already obvious with how aggressively they shove podcasts in your face). If you care about music, it might be time to move elsewhere.

Disagree.

Spotify clearly cares about music - hence the entire history of the company & product.

When one creator on a platform threatens an ultimatum to remove themselves or another creator, that is a rude and aggressive unprovoked attack.

Even if Young had 10x the financial value to Spotify as JRE, I believe they still would've made the same decision: "Do not negotiate with terrorists."

The decisionmaker for who gets to be on Spotify is Spotify. Not Neil Young, not Joe Rogan, not Drake, not Ed Sheeran, not anybody.

It not aggressive or unprovoked - it’s principled. Neil Young is supporting the hundreds of doctors who have previously pointed to the fact that Joe Rogan is creating controversy, for profit, that endangers his listeners (and the people who live in a society with them, since we’re talking about COVID misinformation).

Meanwhile, my Release Radar playlist has about 30% songs that are unavailable and the home screen is full of recommendations for podcasts I don't care about.

Can anyone recommend a good alternative? Preferably with a decent selection of obscure metal. I'd like to try some other paid sevices before reverting to piracy.

Spotify cares about music? Then why is it displaying front and center podcast shows that I have zero interest in above and ahead of the music that I go to Spotify for?

It's fine that they've decided to pivot to being a podcast company with a sideline in music - apparently that's where the money is, and it's a free market. But if they're going to take a political position by signing exclusive contracts with and heavily promoting podcast hosts, they've lost all claim to be a neutral party, and can't expect artists - and customers - to remain with them.

> Spotify clearly cares about music - hence the entire history of the company & product.

Spotify clearly cares about the money they can make managing music rights.

If they cared about *music* their playlists would be curated by humans. If they cared about music they'd be working to increase musician payout across the board, rather than push it down as low as possible like any other business expense. If they cared about music, they'd be creating opportunities to make, share and enjoy music: instead what they focus on is engagement, sponsorship and rights management.

Its not rude to stand up against a creator spewing blatant and dangerous mis-information. It would have been one thing if Roe Rogan was just a regular podcast availiable on Spotify and other places, but its a Spotify exclusive with Spotify promoting him as one of their headliners and paying him millions of dollars. Good on Young for drawing a line in the sand and choose where his music is availiable.

Not likely true.

Your post ignores the recent and not-recent history of the company:

- CEO equates musicians "doing well" with musicians creating a lot content quickly ..: https://ultimateclassicrock.com/spotify-ceo-rockers-respond/ - undermines music as an artform for the sake of high profit - blocking a prominent musician in favor of a talk-show comedian / host. Talk Radio trumping Music. - purportedly poor-quality recommendation engine - purportedly large amount of ads per unit of content

> Spotify clearly cares about music - hence the entire history of the company & product.

That is definitely not clear any more.

As someone who doesn't listen to podcasts via Spotify, the UI is literally unusable for music nowadays.

There clearly could have been an attempt at compromise. Spotify have removed/not stocked Rogan content before. Spotify will have rules for the content it serves and there could have been a discussion on the robustness of these.

> Spotify has chosen a podcast over this

Spotify simply hasn't given in to blackmail. If Joe Rogan said he'd leave Spotify if they don't kick Neil Young out and then Neil Young was kicked out they would've chosen a podcast over Neil Young.

Music is their international product. Choosing to support and subsidize talk radio from a position you could only get to with music is not a new plan. If I were a musician I would pull my work before everyone in talk radio wants equal time for their slime.

Spotify may have won this battle but will lose the war.

Ultimately it's not a question of revenue but whether Spotify has to follow the footsteps of Meta/Facebook and YouTube to moderate content on their platform. This was largely a non-issue before they started their exclusive deals with the likes of Rogan - the onus was on music labels and publishers.

But now Spotify's position as a content platform has been thrust into the spotlight and will likely have to invest in content curation (e.g. algorithms, human raters). Furthermore if other artists follow in Young's footsteps, then this could get quite messy.

Their choice was not between Neil Young and Joe Rogan, but between enabling the freedom of expression or backing down in the face of an outward pressure. If anything, it makes Spotify as a platform more credible.

I couldn't agree more. In fact if the JRE was pulled over this, I'd certainly be cancelling my subscription. Not that I'd expect it to do anything, but just out of principle. (I don't really listen to the podcast!)

Honest question: is blatant disinformation freedom of expression?

So multiplying lies and propaganda is free speech? Jow Rogan is free to talk his nonsense. Amplifying life threatening nonsense is not protecting free speech, it's greed, it's making money over others misfortune.

Rogan et Al. Know they spew nonsense, they don't believe their shit, it's just for the lolz. They are chaos agents enjoying seeing the world crumble while making money of it.

It's a platform the idea that I would request you not being allowed on the internet because we have different opinions is ludicrous even if in this case rogan isn't my cup of tea.

I'm a Canadian and a Neil Young fan, but to call it some of the most important of the last century is a massive stretch. He's a folk-rock singer songwriter with a gravely voice - he isn't close to the most remarkable artist in his own genre, let alone the entire century.

Nah.

Music is about rebellion, often. Young's music was, at the time it was made.

Joe Rogan is also about rebellion. Young just doesn't like his flavor of it, so he's throwing a temper tantrum. Sad, really.

"Old man take a look at my life, I'm a lot like you were"

I think that if Spotify complied with this request, it would set up a dangerous precedent. Next there could be calls left and right to remove all kinds of "objectionable" content (think: that hip hop artist "glorifies violence" — as Twitter puts it — or is sexist/misogynistic).

Disagree. I think Neil Young's music is vague ambiguous pretty lacking in substance and borderline unlistenable.

Dana Carvey does a great bit about 'Every Neil Young song you've ever heard'

https://youtu.be/mPpgB3OA5mM

> Dana Carvey does a great bit about 'Every Neil Young song you've ever heard'

Sure, if every Neil Young song you’ve ever heard are his two most popular ones.

I like Neil Young's music, probably for the same reasons you don't.

I don't agree with his ultimatum to Spotify, but fair enough if he feels that way.

This is also quite a funny video, with Jimmy Fallon covering Neil Young, with Neil Young.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cycKvOwKJZw

You may not like his music but it’s undeniable how important it is in terms of records sold, influence, awards, etc.

Whiny nasal political drivel accompanied by a strumming guitar.

Is it wrong for Spotify to care more about their customers than their creators? I certainly don't think so.

I think this is correct response. Anything else is start of slippery slope. First okay removing pod-cast. But what next some other big name demands removing some other artist, maybe upcoming competitor? Should they acquiesce to that too? Where would it end? A trust of well-connected artists dictating who can be with them on the same platform?

I think the crux of the issue is not that Spotify carries Rogan's podcast like they do 1000s others. It's that Spotify is paying mountains of $ to Rogan for exclusivity.

Spotify is not a passive party in this, they are actively promoting and contributing money to the generation and promotion of extremely dubious content on their platform.

I wouldn't mind so much if they were just carrying that particular podcast amongst a sea of others, I do question Spotify's ethics as a company that's made a conscious choice to finance misinformation.

Probably nothing more than a difference of opinion, but I'm not keen on supporting a company that cannot be considered neutral any more.

Maybe they should if they’re spreading medical disinformation

It ends with you becoming Google/Facebook, trying and failing to police everything people say, and all sides hating you. The company is wise to avoid publicly positioning itself as the arbiter of content for as long as it can.

People celebrating Spotify don’t realise that they’ve selectively gone through Rogans more spicy episodes historically and removed on edited them.

This is business.

> People celebrating Spotify don’t realise that they’ve selectively gone through Rogans more spicy episodes historically and removed on edited them.

Wouldn't it be interesting if someone compared the current cuts with past cuts to see what they wanted/needed to remove.

Someone could make a negative-joe-rogan podcast which is just the edited out bits.

Audio equivalent of selling donut holes.

Some of the prohibited episodes were obvious candidates for suppression like Alex Jones but I remember seeing the list and finding a few real headscratchers. Going to guess there were some specific comments in those episodes that an employee didn't like rather than a general opposition to the guest overall. It's unfortunate that Spotify wasn't more transparent about their review process but tech companies seem to be really fond of the notion that rules cannot be made clear because then people the hate might follow them, denying the opportunity to silence them.

Wasn’t this in the end proven to be a rogue employee?

I mean they would say that, ofc, but seems like really that was the case?

Spotify has a multi-year contract with Rogan, paying him more than $100 million for exclusive content.

That does make me want to switch platforms.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/spotify-strikes-exclusive-podca...

May I suggest the platform of...physical media? I know, retrograde! Inconvenient! Etc! But you can rip your media and get back a lot of the convenience, and if you want you can listen to music without involving a screen.

I was never, ever okay with a big company knowing and controlling how, when, and how long I listen to my music. I dabbled, but I found it far more creepy, somehow, than even letting Google host my email (which is far more intimate, after all). So to you I say: come on back, the water is fine.

That doesn’t fill Spotifys niche. I can listen to the music I like a million ways, even pirating if I want, but Spotify suggests new music (even though it’s nowhere near as good as Pandora was when I used it years ago.)

Not only that, but it's rumored that Rogan negotiated significant creative freedom into the contract. If Spotify were to capitulate to Young's request, they'd most likely be breaking their contract with Rogan. In which case Rogan could just put his podcast back on all the other podcasting platforms again (or even just distribute it from his own website). Young thinking he has any leverage to silence Rogan here is laughable. I suspect he's either senile, extremely narcissistic, or both.

What's laughable is that so many people think Neil Young cares if Spotify carries his music, as if he needs the money or exposure.

He's making a statement that Joe Rogan is polluting our minds. Spotify is promoting and paying Rogan, with an exclusive contract. Will this change anything? We'll see, probably not. But I'm sure Neil Young doesn't care if his music isn't on Spotify, as long as they're funding Rogan's BS.

>Young thinking he has any leverage to silence Rogan here is laughable. I suspect he's either senile, extremely narcissistic, or both.

... he's always been extremely vocal politically and socially, this is really no different. But yeah, sure, let's call him senile/narcissistic.

I think this is an appropriate way to deal with any ultimatum. It's a much weaker form of "don't negotiate with terrorists". It's in no organizations to embolden people into bullying them into something. I wish we saw more of this.

(As a hedge, most times when I see something principled like this happen, there is some small blowback and instead of letting it pass, the organization capitulates and reverses their decision. We'll see if that happens here)

I agree that it's the right move. It's Spotify telling artists and content creators that it won't be a part of either their political statements or grudges. Imagine a streaming platform where Eminem tells the platform to remove Machine Gun Kelly or else he's removing his content. And once one person pulls it off, a lot of people will try to do the same.

> It's Spotify telling artists and content creators that it won't be a part of either their political statements or grudges.

I realize I'm pulling a quote out of context from your comment, itself a specific reply to another comment. That being said:

This doesn't seem to address what I understand to be the issue. I would draw a distinction between political statements based on differences of opinion/perspective and statements that target misinformation. If one believes that the latter is at play, this distinction is relevant, and the idea is somewhat codified (with some variations) in the free speech, hate speech, and libel laws of many jurisdictions for reasons that seem justifiable to me.

More specifically, I would have a problem with Spotify engaging in specific political disputes between artists on their platform. I wouldn't have a problem with Spotify adapting their terms to target misinformation on their platform, assuming this was done in good faith and enforced reasonably.

I hope more musicians join him.

I'd love to have to switch between music streaming platforms based off of which musicians disagree with the doctors Joe Rogan has on his podcast.

Thanks for letting me know

The article said it was Young's decision.

Yes but he offered them a choice to remove Rogan or himself. Spotify chose not to remove Rogan.

But it started with Young saying, "Rogan goes or I go." That landed on deaf ears. So Young "decided" to leave.

I like Neil, saw him in concert long ago and have listened to a ton of his music over many decades. Admittedly, hardly any in recent years unless I go on a nostalgia binge for a day or two. He is, or at least was, brilliant.

I agree with him here, mostly. I wish a bunch of other artists would do the same. Censorship is a complex issue, but there is a lot of mass delusion going on recently and a lot of lives lost because of it.

I haven't really listened to Rogan except clips of what he's said on this issue. But I liked him a lot on Newsradio.

It's not like it is going to hurt Neil, he doesn't need the money. I can't see a huge amount of people streaming his music anymore.

That said, if Neil wants to be "pro-science," he should have never pushed his high res music stuff which sure doesn't stand up to double blind testing.

Neil Young had a whole album that made allegations about GMOs that were not backed up scientifically.

A link from MSNBC :

https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/neil-young-gmo-monsanto-msna6499...

Have GMO advocates scientifically backed up their safety claims?

The burden of proof lies on the side deploying self-replicating novel agents into the environment.

The highlight being the chorus: "mon-san-to let our farmers grow"

It's a fun one. I'm not pro-censorship either, but I also don't think he should do business with platforms he finds unethical.

In a world where competition exists, this is simple - one publisher can carry one author, other publisher can carry others and you just buy the content from the one you prefer.

In a world where everyone defends consolidation into monopolistic platforms and you need to choose which tech platform will own your life this becomes a problematic political issue. At least it's convenient right?

Not dealing with platforms you don't like is one thing, blackmail is another.

> should have never pushed his high res music stuff which sure doesn't stand up to double blind testing.

Not necessarily, e.g., AAC is pretty bad: https://forum.shotcut.org/t/crackling-distorted-audio-in-exp...

Apart from that, you're being severely shortsighted if you think playback is the only thing to do with an audio track.

> you're being severely shortsighted

Do you mean the royal you, or me specifically?

I think mastering is far more important. And I agree other audio formats aren't all great.

But uncompressed CD quality audio is perfectly fine, in terms of resolution, humans can't detect beyond that. Neil's Pono stuff was a waste.... it was MASSIVE datawise for no good reason.

Yeah, FFMPEG famously had a troubled AAC encoder for a long time. It's a bit better since FFMPEG 5.0 was released recently. There is a huge difference between AAC as a codec and the quality of file FFMPEG can generate for it.

> Censorship is a complex issue

Sure seems to be simple: "speech I like is good, speech I don't like is bad".

I imagine that is how someone who doesn't understand nuance would characterize it.

If you understand why such legal concepts as fraud and defamation exist, you would understand that there is indeed nuance to the concept of freedom of speech.

Haven't heard anyone or news mention the fact Young tried to start his own music service a while back. And that his catalogue was a selling point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pono_(digital_music_service)

Oh, golly, the Pono. That's $400 I won't get back, so don't get me started. Oh, wait.

http://tenfourfox.blogspot.com/2015/01/and-now-for-something...

Discontinued April 2017

Must not've been that great of a selling point

Yeah, that's all I immediately think of when I think of Neil Young. Griping about mp3 quality and nonsense no average listener cared about. He's probably very pleased to be off some streaming mumbojumbo site he already hates, and got to put out some positive PR about his 'principles' at the same time. Whatever. Anyone who cares about his music either owns hard copies or finds it on other things like youtube heh

I wonder if the Pono was the inspiration for the pyramid from the Office: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZBVnjXp7GQ.

Funny to see the man who tried to sell a high-definition audio snakeoil music player deciding to suddenly listen to scientists.

Harvest is still one of my favourite albums of all time. Good on Neil for taking a stand. He doesn’t need the money, and he’s never been enamoured by Spotify.

I have no love for Rogan. But I don’t necessarily think Spotify should remove Rogan. But if Neil doesn’t like the way Spotify operates, removing his music is putting his money where his mouth is in terms of protest, and I respect that.

He had the option to simply leave Spotify and state the reasons why. But instead he chose to make threats about leaving unless someone else was cancelled.

When that didn't work, he moaned about Spotify's poor audio quality on his way out the door, adding something about young people believing everything they hear. I can't see anything respectable in that coarse of action.

Did he publish an open letter on his website and then delete it? I wonder why.

Did he or didn’t he? Which he is he? Why would a blog post matter?

Neil Young insulting young people: "Most of the listeners...on SPOTIFY are 24 years old, impressionable and easy to swing to the wrong side of the truth." [1]

24yo's don't need informational protection by the actions of crusty old rockers.

Neil Young: "...these young people, people who believe what they are hearing because it is on SPOTIFY.... they think everything they hear on SPOTIFY is true."

Ridiculous and condescending. He thinks young people are mindless zombies, dazzled by big tech platform brands, unable to think for themselves.

Neil Young: "unfortunately SPOTIFY continues to peddle the lowest quality in music reproduction. So much for art. Soon my music will live on in a better place."

He sounds like a grumpy old man, throwing around ultimatums, then burning bridges on his way out when the plan didn't work.

[1] https://neilyoungarchives.com/news/1/article?id=Spotify-In-T...

Seriously. Old man, look at my life. I’m a lot like you were.

It's the only sane decision to be made. I wonder if Neil Young actually listened to the podcast episode. I really doubt it.

I ain't no fan of Rogan no more, he's gone off the deep end.

But yeah, it's the only sane decision not to let one content creator strong arm you into booting other content creators he doesn't like.

I don't care if you're right or wrong (because he is right, Rogan is misinformation these days), but you don't get to control who gets to say what.

> But yeah, it's the only sane decision not to let one content creator strong arm you into booting other content creators he doesn't like.

One difference is that in the case of Young and most other content creators on Spotify, their content is available all over the place. Spotify pays them royalties based on how many people listen to it on Spotify.

If Young were saying that he didn't want his music on Spotify unless they dropped, say, Nickleback that would just be ridiculous because Spotify isn't doing anything special with Nickleback. They didn't specifically chose to have Nickleback, and if Nickleback gets any money from Spotify it is proportional to how many people choose to listen that way.

With Rogan, Spotify has paid him in advance to make his content exclusively for Spotify. There's a much closer relationship between Rogan and Spotify than between Nickelback and Spotify.

As another comment pointed out, if Taylor Swift or Beyonce joined Neil Young it would really tip the scales. Spotify can't give in to the demands of any one creator, perhaps. But if the right ones got together they could get probably get someone like Joe Rogan booted off the platform

> you don't get to control who gets to say what.

Of course you do! If you have more leverage and power than the person you’re trying to silence, then you get to silence them.

See: Nearly every cop who killed an innocent person up until about the last 5 years.

People having open discussions is misinformation?

What were the exact things that Rogan or his guests said that were misinformation? I don't watch him, but the excerpts I watched from the Robert Malone interview weren't misinformation. The guy even seemed to be pro-vax.

One thing is clear. Spotify should probably have stuck with music. The special relationship with JRE blurs the lines between publisher and platform and their fates might end up being inextricably tied together for better or worse.

I think removing from their platform whoever Neil Young tells them to would be much more of a special relationship. Do you really think Spotify is inclined to deplatform any podcaster because of threats from an artist? That’d just encourage more and more threats to remove whoever the next artist doesn’t happen to like.

Why shouldn't a musician demand that Spotify get rid of another musician? I don't see how podcasters would be special in that regard.

It's not clear to me. JRE on Spotify makes a lot of sense. One borderline irrelevant musician out of tens of thousands?

Did anyone expect a different outcome? Rogan supposedly pulls in 200M monthly listeners while Young's spotify page says he gets 6M per month.

I imagine Young's manager/label tried their best to talk him down, if this wasn't a stunt for some other purpose.

Neil Young has fuck you money and is standing on his principles. Nothing his manager could say would dissuade him. He has very little to lose here.

It would only take 34 more artists to have the same demand to make dropping Rogan worth it, which seems doable. I'm glad someone got the ball rolling; Hopefully others take it to the finish line.

> Rogan supposedly pulls in 200M monthly listeners while Young's spotify page says he gets 6M per month.

Somewhat pedantic note: this statement seems misleading to me. I think you mean "200M monthly listens", unless you're claiming that 2.5% of the world's population listens to Rogan every month?

They had little choice. If you let someone anyone dictate your decisions, others will leverage their power too. Soon, it would descend into who has more clout than whom and the parties shoot at each other in a cross-fire as they race to the bottom. It would be a no-win for Spotify.

I’ve seen popular/powerful people being de-platformed, after much rumble, I once was on the side of those questioning platforms for giving “them” the opportunity to build a strong voice I didn’t want to exist.

It only made things worse, the guys moved underground but their communities kept growing and felt validation in martyrdom, and soon enough they found a new, even stronger voice, and they always find ways to circumvent censorship.

It should not be done because it simply does not work in the long run.

Unless you prefer totalitarian regimes of course…

> It should not be done because it simply does not work in the long run.

The phrase "work" here is pretty subjective from case to case. The outcome ultimately is determined by who is getting censored by whom and for what. As a general rule it "works" just as often as it doesn't.

Is there an issue at all here? A person who owns some stuff decided they didn't like something and left. That is their right. Another person is exercising their free speech. That is also their right, even when some people label it misinformation. There is a lot of drama in this thread, but none worth reading.

> Most of the listeners hearing the unfactual, misleading and false COVID information on SPOTIFY are 24 years old, impressionable and easy to swing.

I don't agree with Joe Rogan, but this is a very wild claim.

Young thinks misinformation leads to vaccine skepticism, but hostile behavior like censorship and mandates are also likely to drive people away and increase distrust of science and government.

Kudos to Spotify, whether it's a money decision, or a decision to stand up to a has-been entertainer. They stood up to a bully.

This has interesting parallels to religion, or at least the arguments that evangelicals like to use in the main stream these days.

Not really. NY was standing up to Spotify's bad decision to broadcast dangerous misinformation, and he was making a protest to try to get them to see sense. Good for him! I hope he sticks to his principles.

Can anyone recommend the best alternative to Spotify that still has Neil Young? Ideally with a linux client and the ability to control one device from another device's linked client.

I listen to quite a bit of Neil Young and not-so-much Joe Rogan.

I enjoy Apple Music as it works on my Apple Watch without an iPhone. It holds both uploaded music and streaming additions to my library. I previously used Google Play Music which was an MVP its whole life cycle. The switch to Apple Music was rather easy.

On the Beach is one of my favorite Young albums and its on AM.

I'm making the switch to tidal and I'm really enjoying the high quality audio (I have the hardware to match). And it has Neil Young on there. There are some very, very obscure punk rock albums that aren't on there but I was honestly surprised that Spotify even had them so it's not a deal breaker. Their price tiers match Spotify's so for me it was a 'why didn't I do this ages ago' moment. The move wasn't for one specific reason but more a gathering of many small things that finally made me push through the inertia.

Edit to add that the phone app needs some polish. I've got a few really unusual errors and it's not as slick as the Spotify app. It works but I could easily see less technical users just dropping it because of them. But the web player and desktop apps have been great.

pirate bay

I've been playing with YouTube music and got to say it's been a great alternative to Spotify for now. Secretly afraid of Google killing it off though

I use Amazon music because I like to stream music over my Alexa while showering. Listened to Old Man in the shower this morning.

I don't understand what motivates a move like this. Is he really that indignant about Joe's views on COVID that he can't sell on the same platform. If so why? Because he cares about public health initiatives that much?

> I don't understand what motivates a move like this

There's been this big shift the last 10 or so years that hasn't got enough attention. People somehow now act like the world has to align to focus all its priorities on exactly what they prioritize, and can't imagine the idea that things matter differently to different people.

The way things previously worked, you didn't have to agree with everything someone else did or said, you just had to get along. Now it's like "if you don't drop everything and take my cause as seriously as I do, you're dead to me"

I had previously thought it was a "me generation" thing, but Neil Young is like 80 so i guess it's a societal shift.

There is an interesting and (imo) humbling take I heard about this from a local radio host who was asking the same question ("what motivates somebody to expose their true value?"). In this case, the host brought up that several (all?) of Neil Young's children suffer from medical maladies, which may cause him to be more sensitive to situations that he believes could cause them undue harm. I still disagree with Neil's position and decision, but I found that this really helped humanize him in ways other pundits have missed.

Anti-vaccine misinformation is killing hundreds of thousands of people. It is not an unimportant issue.

It seems like the ultimate form of virtue signaling or a cry for attention. If that is what he wanted, he succeeded. It is all over the news today. Everywhere. Have to commend Spotify for not backing down despite the heap of criticism they have gotten over the past year about Rogan.

He wrote an open letter if you want to know.

Its called virtue signaling.

I honestly think it's because he doesn't like Spotify and Joe Rogan is his straw man excuse for leaving.

> I don't understand what motivates a move like this.

Neil Young was saved from Polio as a child by being one of the early recipients of the Salk vaccine. As someone who is living proof of the effectiveness of vaccines, he likely has very little patience for people who profit off of spreading vaccine misinformation and put his own profits on the line to make the statement. Good for him.

I think this is good for music. I don't think people should think of Spotify as the only place that music exists. It's the new (better) "radio", but good art is often to be found in escaping and rejecting constraints, centralization, and default ways to do things. So, I'm glad that Spotify's very nature is bound to piss people like Neil Young off, regardless of the particulars of this case.

I disagree with Neil on this one.

Trying to cancel and censor another artist because you disagree with their opinions feels very wrong. But just because I disagree with Neil doesn't mean I want to censor him or take him off Spotify or my playlists... Oh wait. He removed his music from my Spotify playlists.

Why wouldn't Neil just write a song titled "Joe Rogan" and use the Spotify platform to spread his message? I'd respect that.

As Obama says it about call-out culture, "That's not activism". [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaHLd8de6nM

It's funny that the tone some of the Rogan proponents take seems to turn some of the discussion here sour by being so confrontational, though the negativity towards Rogan is repeatedly backed up by some lackluster proof, and seems similarly ideological. He's never claimed to be authoritative about anything besides MMA and comedy. He has long form discussions where he expresses opinions. Calling him dangerous because he's willing to discuss important topics with a wide range of people... it's like saying people shouldn't discuss things they aren't experts on in general, maybe? And further, it's saying you have the authority to denote what makes an expert (it's not being an MD, doctors disagree with each other sometimes).

If I'm not a doctor, and suggest some medicinal treatment to a good friend that does more harm than good, am I responsible? I'd argue possibly. If I'm saying I'm an idiot about this topic every couple of hours, I'd argue not. I'm not claiming expertise. Even if I've read some articles and I say as much, my friends know me, I don't posture, I don't know shit. I expect them to be responsible enough to act accordingly. Broadcasters have some level of responsibility. I don't know how much that should be or how it should be enforced. I think this might need to be done on the individual level, in your own discussions and considerations.

I just think it's silly when people claim to know the truth and try to silence people, even if it seems clear to you what's correct. I think it pushes everyone into their own sides further. We're not at war with each other and we don't want to be. Be chill, question people with honest and positive curiosity, and be friendly. Maybe you'll bring someone to a more reasonable side, or maybe you'll figure out you're being the unreasonable one. Sometimes people don't bite, but if you try you've done your part.

I don't listen to JRE but does Spotify also inject ads on his podcasts? I listened to some other Spotify exclusives and to my surprise (for a paid subscription service), they had injected audio ads. I'm not talking about live reads either but flow interrupting commercial breaks. What's next, break up songs with ads?

Yes there's ads, but they're weird. They're ad reads that Joe does. And when the ads start, the "time duration scrubber" at the bottom of Spotify changes and allows you to just pull the scrubber to the end of the ad read.

So unlike the rest of Spotify's ads (for music) you can skip these ads.

Yes, the show usually breaks at around the 10 minute mark for a block of ads. In some cases I’ve heard them run two blocks during an episode.

Not thrilled about it, but I don’t know if that’s distinctly a Spotify thing or if content creators have the option.

I guess Young got tired of Rockin’ in the Free World and would rather go rock in a world where speech must be approved by The Authorities.

What you're saying doesn't make any sense based on his actions. He chose not to do business with Spotify any longer. That's his freedom.

Being free to choose not to do business that promotes misinformation is a freedom. I wouldn’t do it personally, but I respect his choice.

Is anybody really all that surprised by this, though? Setting Spotify's deal with JRE aside, removing the show from the platform would set an unenforceable precedent for the majority of podcasts. If we just start banning people for saying things that go against the status quo, what would we even be left with? A handful of NPR shows minus The Moth Radio Hour?

Joe Rogan is a hilariously bad entertainer and an even worse podcast host, but how could this have gone any other way? If Spotify caved, everyone would have gotten the worst of both worlds: people who don't care would have a diminished Spotify experience while every other artist gets a piece of the virtue-signalling pie, and disenfranchised podcast hosts would just go back to RSS and keep distributing their content to the exact same people.

> …and an even worse podcast host

Mmm I’m interested on your reasons for saying that as I think the opposite. He lets the interviewed to talk freely and requests explanations when bullshit claims are made. He never attempts to conduct the interview to follow his way of thinking. It’s a show that surprisingly on these times, doesn’t have an agenda or ideology behind. The show feels like the classic easy going guy from the gym having a innocent conversation with someone who knows about some area.

Overall, I think he is a great interviewer and the only thing I could complain is that sometimes he might brings some wacky people, but hell, I have enjoyed a lot of those too.

If Joe's such a bad entertainer why do you think he has such a gigantic audience?

Spotify is explicitly paying a huge amount for Joe Rogan to be exclusive.

Joe Rogan has 200 million monthly listeners. And you call him a “worse podcast host”.

That is not factually objective.

There's a big difference between "saying things that go against the status quo" and spreading obvious and dangerous misinformation, lies and conspiracy theories.

I will be curious to see if NY will stay off of Spotify forever, while JRE is there, or if once covid is not the main news story, that NY is back on Spotify.

Alexa, set a reminder for 3 years from now...

His catalog is owned by Warner Brothers, I give you... *checks watch* 6 months.

More like, "Neil Young removing his music from Spotify because they refused to cave to his juvenile ultimatum"

Why this headline other way around - It should be "Neil Young pulling his music out of Spotify" .. But this doesnt make sense ..Its free speech and opinions . Ex-President had millions of followers and was elected !! would that mean you move out of the country ..

I just refuse to listen to podcast on Spotify that are exclusive because that is against the whole nature of podcasting.

Then why use Spotify at all?

Those of us who live in the US enjoy free speech, which clearly allows types of speech that are considered misinformation. In order for a platform to censor speech that is otherwise legal, they must either do it out of principle (they simply don't like a certain kind of speech) or as a calculated business decision because it's what their customers want.

It turns out a significant number of people who support free speech also want their favorite platforms to not allow speech they don't like. The argument is "this is not free speech, it's misinformation and it's damaging." If there were valid scientific arguments proving that what we call misinformation is actually damaging, that would be a reasonable position. However, so far I have not seen anything that convinced me.

All I've heard are "just so" arguments akin to "TV/videogames cause violence." What if fake news do not change people's minds as much as it may appear? We tend to listen to viewpoints (fake or not) that confirm our beliefs. All the information confirming our beliefs is out there, cannot be removed from the internet, and we will gravitate towards it. If that is true, then we are paying a high price (asking platforms to police speech beyond the law) for little or no benefit.

Edit: downvoter, I would appreciate if it you could explain how you disagree with my comment.

I agree with what you are saying, but I'd say that it's specifically the progressive side that benefits the most from the censorship, even if it may be bad for society as a whole. Plenty of people out there aren't really actually devoted to free speech, they are moreso dedicated to this new totalitarian ideology, and would be happy to throw free speech out the window if it means nobody can rebut their claims. I'd guess that they think it benefits their political goals more than it hurts society. I'd also guess that they are the same people downvoting your comment.

Free speech only applies to the government. A private company has every right to not amplify your message if they don't want to.

I think many people miss the point - it is a podcast and not a news stream. Especially in case of JR, what I like about him, he does not have a paper of questions in front of whim, or a guide of some sort in front of him that provides interview scheme and main questions to ask. He obviously has it and keeps the key points in mind to route discussion across the topics he thinks of a most interest with invited guest. But that projects environment of a nice talk, with a friend who stopped by today - we talk, we debate, we drink and smoke and make jokes. What I personally find a lot in his podcast, due to the incredible diverse guests pool, is points of view, historical facts, ways to think about the same issue I never thought before, some laughs, some tears and move on with some baggage in my head. He always says - do not listen to me, do not repeat what I did, and when he says something guests, who very often, do not have any vested interests of any sort, are free to disagree with him, correct him on his mistakes and it happened multiple times. So if he says something controversial, and guest does not correct him it might be mostly because of

- guest does not know much about it - does not want to start debate on the subject - agrees with him

What about Young - I'm sorry for him, he made a mistake. Music is not about right or wrong, music is nice, and it's emotion. If you want that your music "tells" something, preaches a way to see things, so be it. But what Young did, is the same as I refuse to use Nginx because some pedophile sites use it. Spotify is a platform, for God sake, let it be it. This all messed up and I don't think there is a way out of this stupid situation, other than something really big, really massively bad happening on the planet, or at least in "developed" world, so it kind of resets priorities in people, to the "normal" (whatever that is, but not definitely this)

> Most of the listeners hearing the unfactual, misleading and false COVID information on 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.

I believe the crux of the thing lies here, in that second paragraph.

60 years old are the people who believes in TV networks, radios stations and podcasts.

24 years old grew up used to the the fact that “on the internet, nobody knows you are a dog”. Meaning that they know that anyone can say anything on the internet and have a YouTube channel about that, a podcast about that. And that podcast or YouTube channel can look just as a TV news show or a mainstream radio show.

Meaning that they know for a fact that a podcast or a YouTube channel is just someone’s ideas.

That realization actually when further and 24 years old actually understand that a TV show and a radio show also are someone’s ideas, distorted by the need to please advertisers and people who think some things cannot be shown on TV (or the radio).

It’s the 60 years old people that failed to understand those things. They are stuck in the mindset where things shown on a screen (or broadcast in audio) are true and mainstream (as in everyone believed in them).

And they became prey to people (24 years old) who wanted to sell things, win elections or convert them into their cults (ideologies).

So, 60 years old think Spotify should ban joe Rohan. 24 yearly old just don’t listen to it if they don’t like those ideas.

60 years old want to ban some ideas from the world, because they fear that every broadcast idea is true, therefore if those strange and fringe ideas as broadcast, they fear they will become true.

Friends, the earth was moved just below your feet and you didn’t realized that people have always been believing in strange ideas, they just have been restricted out of the TV and radio.

Now that anyone and everyone has its own tv show and radio station, those strange ideas are easily accessible to anyone.

As soon as today’s 24 years old become the world’s 60 years old and the old mindset is gone, things will come back to normal. Meaning: Joe Rogans guests can think whatever they want, I don’t care.

Yep,... and those 60yo watch Dr. Oz and similar scam artists, and believe them, because "it's on TV".

Ultimatums shouldn't be rewarded. They don't allow for compromise or peaceful coexistence. Neil Young should go on JRE and share his views rather than attempt to silence others.

I used to read Ars Technica a lot more, but since ~2018, the comment sections there started becoming extremely toxic and one-sided very quickly.

I'm wondering if it has something to do with Condé Nast, because WIRED isn't doing too great either in that regard.

You're not alone, I just avoid it. I'd rather hope to see the same news or topics here and see what people have to say. The Ars comment section is scary and just makes me lose hope in humanity.

I noticed the same. It gives some hard insight into their present audience. I remember when it used to be more tech based and now there is an increasing political tone.

I had been reading RPS (Rock Paper Shotgun) a video-games review website until 2015 or so, then it all... changed. It's a lot less lively there now.

I fear that HN has been on that road since about 2017, the Zeitgeist has changed, or maybe I was just always a strange man with strange principles :p

Zaid Jilani has posted an insightful piece on the controversy.

See https://www.inquiremore.com/p/neil-youngs-transformation-on-...

>Much of the left now believes that the flow of information should be centralized and controlled to achieve certain social objectives; the right or freedom to express one’s self — even if you’re dead wrong — is not really seen as important in and of itself. That’s a big reversal from the modern left’s values, at least the left that existed since the New Left came of age in the sixties.

Sounds like a lot of misinformed bleating to me

I mean, he says that Young's changing views simply mirror the changing views of "the left" then spouts some stat about Democrats. Democrats are left of Republicans, but very few leftists consider Democrats to be of the left in the main

Is this so he can get out of his contract and sell his library to Sony like several big artists recently did?

Edit: Looks like he already sold it off recently. Wonder why he has any say on this anymore.

It seems to me that both Neil Young and Joe Rogan are good people that are doing what they think is right.

But, in my judgement, they're both making serious mistakes.

Young is making the mistake of trying to summon and/or join a mob to silence someone. And Rogan is making the mistake of not handling his Covid-related conversations with the diligence a pandemic ethically requires.

In neither case do they deserve hatred. The best outcome would be for them, or at least others, to learn from their mistakes.

How is Young trying to silence anyone? He clearly knew the answer to the question of "it's me or Rogan" before he posed it.

He's just making it very clear what his position is on Spotify's tacit support of misinformation and he's taking a financial hit to boot.

Comparing Young to Rogan in this instance is a bit of a stretch. Young might force people to think a bit, Rogan either directly or indirectly, is causing people to distrust the vast majority of experts with some sort of dudebro contrarian outlook - and people will die due to it

> Young is making the mistake of trying to summon and/or join a mob to silence someone.

Ironically, Rogan’s career in comedy was launched through doing exactly this (cancelling Carlos Mencia).

Props to Spotify for standing up for freedom of speech.

Spotify has been advertising their podcasts for a long time, and I have listened to a few of them on the service. I even tried an episode of Joe Rogan and decided I didn't like it, but after that it seemed that Spotify's recommendation algorithm really started pushing the show.

I switched to Tidal, which doesn't have quite as good a selection of artists. They do still have Neil Young.

I’m no Joe Rogan fan, but I can say this about him: I guarantee that he’d have Neil Young on the podcast. Obviously, the reverse is not true.

I honestly hate censorship in all of it's forms. If we start censoring Joe Rogan, how long will it take for them to go after Star Talk and other science podcasts. Joe Rogan introduced me to the Wim Hof method which is a lot of fun even though I don't believe half the supposed benefits. Sure, he's platforming fascists and assholes. But he also platforms people like Andrew Yang.

We aren't children in elementary school. I like being able to hear something and make a decision about what is garbage and what is not. So do a lot of other people. I don't want people to tell me what is "Safe" for me to listen to. Just like I don't want someone to tell me what is safe to read. I want to read Maus. I want to listen to Neil deGrasse Tyson. Sometimes I want to listen to Joe Rogan and his guests. I want to listen to the people who shit all over Joe Rogan and his guests.

The shame isn't that Joe Rogan exists. The shame is an abiding ignorance that makes Joe Rogan a household name.

It is kind of refreshing seeing someone actually sacrifice something for what they believe in. Whether you agree or not.

I asked Spotify support what happened to all my Neil Young albums. They just disconnected me.

Makes me wonder if Spotify could have created a DMZ between their music and podcasting revenue streams to protect them from one another. Podify for podcasts and Spotify for music. Just a thought....

Neil Old.

But seriously, as brilliant of a songwriter and musician he was, it's hard to not suspect he had ulterior motives here. He's been wanting his content off streaming platforms for a while (he's done it before, citing music quality as the supposed reason). This latest stunt vs Rogan/Spotify was a great opportunity for him to earn social brownie points while moving to stream his music on his own platform. Win-win.

He is totally free to do that of course, just as Spotify is free to not be held hostage by his ultimatum.

I wonder if Neil would think about being a guest on Joe's show. I've never listened to Joe Rogan, and I don't know if I've ever heard a Neil Young song, but that seems like it might be the principled thing to do, to explain your position to Joe's audience. And I wonder if Joe would have him on? Would people just expect Joe to talk over Neil or otherwise be rude to him? If that was the expectation, then of course I wouldn't expect Neil to participate.

Rogan would have him on. And he’s a great conversationalist, very polite, so Young would be fine (incidentally that why I cant stand to listen to Rogan… too chill)

And you’ve heard Young’s songs. “Keep on rockin’ in the free world” (?) is a staple.

Young’s no Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) though. Easiest decision for Spotify ever

No, because no matter the outcome, that would be feeding into JR pockets.

why would he create content for joe if he disagrees with joe? Sounds to me like only one person is profiting from such an endeavour and its joe.

"If you disagree with someone, the only honorable thing to do would be to go on their platform of misinformation to make them more money while they present your position in the most disingenuous way possible."

Come on, you can't be on hacker news and have this poor of critical thinking skills, right?

Surely the title should read "Neil Young requests Sportify remove his own library from the platform after voicing his displeasure with another content creator"

Ironically, probably the most "too smart for the truth" type person I know is both a massive Neil Young AND Rogan fan.

We don't trust artists with medical diagnosis or designing a bridge.

Yet in politics they're immediately as respected as someone with a law degree in constitutional law and philosophy from Harvard.

Can anyone explain to me, why people care about artists' political views?

I've never understood this and I'm being completely serious.

is it a remnant of the '60s anti-war movement?

The Decoding the Gurus podcast did an episode on Rogan’s recent discussions pushing Covid disinfo:

https://decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm/episode/robert-malon...

It any good? Have never heard of the podcast.

How long has Neil Young been out of touch? This is the most anti-rock, anti-punk, anti-free-thinker move an old rich dude can make. No matter where one stands on the content of Joe Rogan’s podcast, Neil Young’s ideas and actions are basically irrelevant. Neil Young is beyond overrated even though many might say he’s under appreciated. Last thing, before this black text turns transparent… Why does no one talk about the fact that the discussion about “misinformation” basically assumes everyone is a dolt. Also, if everyone is so helplessly stupid, why don’t we ban infomercials for crap products like magnetic socks that “treat arthritis” or pills that make you “lose weight” as misinformation?

> why don’t we ban infomercials for crap products like magnetic socks that “treat arthritis” or pills that make you “lose weight” as misinformation?

Amen brother, where do I sign up for this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

Im really (negatively) surprised by an artist who is straight up against freedom of speech even if he disagrees with the content.

We're in this weird place where we label anything we disagree with as disinformation. I'm a big fan of Joe Rogan's podcast, but not Joe himself. He brings in interesting and different people and allows them to share their thoughts and experiences without interruption you see on TV or much setup, or most importantly, censorship.

You can disagree with what his guests are saying, or his views, but it's really dangerous to push for deplatforming him or his guests simply because you disagree with their views.

Would this even be a problem if most people didn't get their music/podcasts from a single massive entity?

If Spotify has to make such calls they're obviously too big.

One of the best things about my analog record collection is that the grooves don’t disappear when the artist starts fighting with their label or distributor.

I'm sorry but I pay spotify for music not Joe Rogan, I have 3 playlists that had Neil Young on them. I'm switching back to YARing music.

> “Please act on this immediately today and keep me informed of the time schedule.”

Hmmm, I like Neil Young, but he's not too relevant to cause such impact.

It's like telling the government to put certain companies out of business because the owner has a worldview that I don't like.

> Most of the listeners hearing the unfactual, misleading and false COVID information on 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.

Hello, 23 but close enough. This is not how I think. Spotify is not the creator of the content, they just host it. Is what Roe Rogan and his guests are saying so awful that you have to bully his host? I must be missing something.

Luckily for NY there are many more 23/24 year olds than you.

Shouldn't the title be "Neil Young is removing his music from Spotify..." or am I mis-reading the story?

Neil Young is so woke that he canceled himself to support big pharma and overreaching authoritarianism.

Neil Young removed his music from Spotify, not the other way around. The distinction seems important.

Joe Rogan should interview this guy next:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_Ayyadurai

Ayyadurai is notable for his widely disputed claim of being the "inventor of email".

This would be at par with the mRNA inventor guy :), and increase Rogan’s podcast credibility…

Neil is yesterday, Rogan is now and the future. I guess Spotify looked at the numbers?

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Neil Young removed his music from Spotify? After failing to blackmail them, sure, but he did the removing himself.

I love his music and never listened to Rogan, but this just seems like an attempt to stay relevant, while virtue signalling.

Well sadly Neil Young is no Taylor Swift who can move the large caps.

I bet that piece of humble pie taste good for Neil Young. The attempt to silence people because of fear of misinformation is absurd and needs to stop universally. No one has ever crusated against the man who said one and one equals three

The problem is it's the Joe Rogan Experience a show but people are seeing or hoping it's something intellectual but it's not. On every show the topic is Joe Rogan whether people believe that or not.

I've never listened to Neil Young, but he has every right to do this.

I also have the right to uninstall Spotify from all my devices because I don't agree with them platforming anti-vaxxers.

Joe Rogan is/was a comedian.

Aaah, musicians wishing to be politicians.

I cant hear this over the sound of my

Well I heard Mister Young sing about her

Well I heard ol' Neil put her down

Well I hope Neil Young will remember

A southern man don't need him around anyhow

I saw cotton and I saw black Tall white mansions and little shacks Southern man, when will you pay them back? I heard screamin' and bullwhips cracking How long? How long? How?

The problem with this kind of requests if you comply with it, then you've set a precedence. Then who knows who else is going to get offended and then start demanding something else to be taken down.

And the worst case scenario in this attention hungry culture how many others will start making demands like this just for more publicity? I can't read minds. I didn't know this artist before this debacle. It certainly brought him a lot of free publicity. How many people are going to start doing the same now given the amount of free publicity?

Neil Young was one of the most gifted songwriters and musicians of the 60s and 70s (and produced popular music since then but not anywhere near that peak, save a brief resurgence in the 90s). If you haven’t listened to him before, “Heart of Gold” was his biggest hit.

Anyway, it’s a huge stretch to say that he’s looking for attention 60 years past his prime, and probably only a few years from his 80th birthday. He’s already made his millions and lives quietly in rural Canada and California.

My guess is that he actually is bothered by Rogan’s content and doesn’t want to be associated with him.

It’s more akin to a boycott than a publicity stunt IMO.

Another thread on the same subject: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30093989

We merged that one hither.

I would like to think this is because Spotify grew a spine and is defending free speech. But I doubt it, given they've removed many of Joe Rogan's episodes. This is probably just a cold hard business decision, since the number of people seeking Neil Young content is likely very low by comparison.

> We want all the world's music and audio content to be available to Spotify users," Spotify said

> we've removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to COVID since the start of the pandemic

Doesn't sound like they're principled on free speech.

Spotify: “that’s below my line”

>> Young, a long-time proponent of high-resolution music files, also wrote that "many other platforms, Amazon, Apple, and Qobuz, to name a few, present my music today in all its High-Resolution glory—the way it is intended to be heard, while unfortunately Spotify continues to peddle the lowest quality in music reproduction. So much for art."

It is interesting how Young will stand up against spreading misinformation, and continue to make blatantly untrue statements such as this. I wonder if he somehow isn't up to date with the technology, science and research in this field after being involved in it for so long, or if it is a branding decision and some persona to be kept as a public entertainer.

Do you mean that Spotify has same quality, or that there's no perceived difference between Spotify vs other higher bitrate? (Any links to validate?)

Spotify has quality setting in app but from what I've heard it's still lower bitrate than Tidal for example and apparently the diff can be heard. (Although I saw some blog a while ago claiming that quality distortion on Spotify is a side-effect of some DRM/watermarking they do).

He claimed in 2015 that AM radio and cassettes were higher fidelity than the best streaming.

He also has lots to say about GMO.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/neil-youngs-long-record-of-spr...

Now, he's free to have his own opinions, but he hasn't exactly been a defender of science in the past. I agree with his vaccination position here, obviously, but that doesn't mean Spotify erred in their judgment either.

I'm waiting when Apple will give ultimatum to Spotify - either AppStore or Joe Rogan.

I guess this is one way to get media attention. Probably the increased media coverage from this will help boost sales from other sources to negate loss of Spotify revenue.

Why is it hard to imagine that he didn’t do this for financial reasons at all? I doubt the increased media coverage will actually make him much money.

How much of a loss can Young leaving be? Nothing against ol' Neil but his relevance is long gone. He's a great artist. He has a right to his opinion. But in terms of "cultural juice" he's heading in to sunset.

I didn't know they were actively standing behind Rogan - I kind of expected they signed him on before he went completely off the deep end and are now just keeping up the status quo.

I will go cancel my Spotify subscription now.

I used to listen to the podcast a lot before it went to Spotify. While Rogan is a self-admitted "ignorant", it was that aspect that made his interviews interesting and enjoyable. He always had guests of all types and beliefs.

Unfortunately, it seems that the pandemic has thrown him into a conspiracy hole. I think the whole thing started with one of the Weinstein brothers and the ivermectin push and it just went downhill from there...

It is ironic you believe he went "off the deep end" after signing with Spotify, because many JRE fans believe he has gone soft since signing.

Personally I don't think anything has changed. He is the same, long form open dialog on topics he is interested it, we need more Joe Rogan's, not less

It's all fine. I could barely hear the music over my vaginas steamer.

You know what the problem is with spotify and JRE. They not only host it, they push it. I cancelled my Spotify because EVERY SINGLE DAY I'd have to see that pathetic loosers face on my home screen.

This is not about 'free speech' or whatever, it is about a company pushing dangerous content with no way to say 'nah, I'd rather not'. They have zero respect for their users & zero respect for artists.

Fuck spotify.

I thought I was the only one dealing with that.

I'm sure none of this has anything to do with Neil Young having a competitive streaming service named Pono and the huge amounts of publicity that comes along with such a public spat with the most popular Podcaster on the planet (I am a cynic, though):

https://mixdownmag.com.au/news/industry/neil-youngs-pono-to-...

It was announced years ago but nothing seems to have happened.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pono_(digital_music_service)#S...

I am also sure, since Pono hasn't been in business for half a decade.

Well, I heard Mr. Young sing about her.

Well, I heard old Neil put her down.

Well, I hope Neil Young will remember.

A southern man don't need him around anyhow.

Edit: Downvoted for singing a classic, smh

Young was actually a fan of Lynyrd Skynyrd,

https://groovyhistory.com/content/123649/ef5e0e961b40d5108f2...

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