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Comment by johnmorrison | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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).

Rogan isn't creating the controversy, media outlets reporting on Rogan are. They also frequently stir up controversy for clicks. Are you not equally skeptical of their profit motive?

I am confident that Neil Young is not removing his music from Spotify in order to make money.

And I am confident that Neil Young doesn't know what he's talking about:

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

I'm with the anti-GMO crowd for the monopolistic concerns on top of the effing-with nature concerns. GMOs are (probably) not dangerous like asbestos, but they are by no means safe and a good idea.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/05/monsanto200805

All evidence to the contrary I suppose. So is it safe to label you anti-science and conclude you and Young are endangering people with death and disability because GMO-enhanced crops can feed more people and satisfy nutritional deficiencies? This strikes me as very much the same sort of disagreement over what are clear facts on one side, and what some would consider unwarranted paranoia on the other.

Maybe people should just be allowed to have these conversations because the paranoid serve a useful purpose.

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.

I went to Apple Music already back when Spotify decided to give Rogan their platform and the millions of dollars. Can't say I regret it.

Apple music is no better, but I went this route too.

bandcamp.

Apple Music would probably have the largest library of Metal music owing to its MOG lineage (via Beats Music).

Doesn't Apple Music require Apple devices? :/

I don’t actually use it, but my understanding is that it doesn’t. There’s an Android app, at the very least.

I just know that MOG’s selling point for a long while was it’s huge metal library and license set; I see no reason for that to have been lost through its MOG->Beats->Apple Music transition.

Alright, I'll have to give it a try. Thanks for the tip!

soulseek

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.

> 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?

Tangent, but this is actually obnoxious. I never seem to get the “new releases for you” on my home screen anymore, but every-time I open the app I see I slew of podcasts I don’t give a damn about despite me slipping through maybe one podcast episode in my entire account history.

> 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.

Blatant and dangerous misinformation? You're gonna have to back those bold claims up, otherwise what's stopping us from claiming that you are the culprit and should be gulag'd?

You have no idea what you're talking about, which is what's so fucked up about this whole situation. This is all a dystopian cliche. Opinions are not misinformation, and looking at opposing evidence and arguments is not misinformation. It never was, and never will be. The only people who ever claimed such things are historically disgraced totalitarians.

Misinformation comes from states and organizations with ulterior motives who twist and hide the truth for their own gain. It's about power.

Crying out about how "dangerous" it is to have a real discussion that you don't like is ridiculously absurd. Are you saying adults are too stupid to think for themselves, or should not be allowed to take calculated risks? Do you have some kind of proof that having discussions is bad for individuals and/or communities in some way?

> You're gonna have to back those bold claims up, otherwise what's stopping us from claiming that you are the culprit and should be gulag'd?

There are six in here: https://www.insider.com/joe-rogan-podcast-episodes-that-spre...

Further support of the first in that list: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/rogan-dont-need-to-worry-v...

Further support of the fifth: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/aug/31/joe-rogan/...

A separate 7th item: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jul/26/joe-rogan/...

I said to explain how this is misinformation and dangerous, not show me episodes you don't like.

> I said to explain how this is misinformation and dangerous, not show me episodes you don't like.

prohobo, you may wish to read the links for concrete answers to your request. The how is answered very directly, especially considering the bottom three links are all fact-checking sites that explain the how and the why.

But if you don't care to, we can move on.

I've read the articles: none of them explain how this is dangerous, and none of them have a compelling case that Joe Rogan or his guests intentionally lie to their audience.

What they do is make arguments against their points, many of which aren't verifiable or are just opinions.

I'm all for removing things that are empirically and logically "dangerous misinformation", but we have to actually prove it empirically and logically first. Can you do that?

Rogan doesn't have to be intentionally lying to his audience for it to be dangerous misinformation

There is no evidence that Rogan's opinions are either dangerous, or considered "information" by most people. Beware overusing this term or it will lose all meaning.

Intentionality is required for something to be misinformation.

misinformation: incorrect or misleading information

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/misinformation

On a quick glance at the 1st one: Joe says "healthy young people" don't need the vaccine, but the claim debunked is "young people" don't need the vaccine. Why can't they address what he actually said?

They can't address what he actually said for the same reason anyone likes to refute a strawman argument instead of addressing the real argument.

I think the officials are so afraid that any discussion of nuance [1] would frighten people away from the vaccines that they simply avoid talking about it entirely, and sometimes call to outright suppress any such discussions as "misinformation" and label these people as "anti-vaxx".

[1] https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/uk-now-reports-myoca...

His claim is still wrong. https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2021/im-a-healthy-young-person-...

If you want proof let’s set some parameters on what you would consider sufficient for that proof.

1) Prove it's misleading or incorrect information. Getting a fact wrong in a longform discussion doesn't count, it needs to be intentional.

2) Prove it's dangerous: either for individuals or communities.

So here’s where we have a problem…

Proving something incorrect is proving proving the negative. That’s not how people engage in good faith argumentation.

I’ll add, a traditional definition of “incorrect information” would primarily focus on factual accuracy over motivation.

Why is it necessary to prove intentionality to prove incorrectness?

All of this is before we acknowledge that you will never accept something as proven false, as proven intentional, or as proven harmful.

Your standard is meaningless because it’s both incoherent and unmeetable.

It’s also characteristic of arguments like this and why the ‘bullshit asymmetry’ concept exists. Trying to meet it is a distraction that simply serves to give your argument credibility because people engage with it in trying (hopelessly) to meet your asymmetric epistemically standards.

What are you talking about? If you claim something is dangerous and want it removed, you better have god damn compelling evidence of the "danger".

Explain what the danger is, and how it is manifesting.

And intentionality is absolutely relevant to this, considering we are essentially judging a conversation between two people. Does the same conversation in a bar constitute misinformation? When does it go from conversation to declaration? When does opinion become misinformation?

I'm not currently interested in whether what they're saying is true or not, I'm interested in whether it can be considered misinformation in spirit of the meaning of the word. If their intention is to discuss something sincerely, then it's not misinformation - it's opinion.

For the record, never once in history have the ones who banned the books and censored the people, been the good guys. Not once.

100% right.

Good ideas do not require the censorship of bad ideas.

Good you guys are agreeing. I'm not sure what banning books has to do with anything. Nobody is "banning" Joe Rogan, he can make all the podcasts he wants. My issue with Spotify and Rogan is that my premium membership is directly funding him. If this was just another ad-supported podcast, available on Spotify, Apple podcasts etc - no problem, but it isn't. This is the core of the matter, not banning him.

I pay for a full family premium plan, and I am very confident that the majority of premium Spotify customers either support Rogan or are indifferent in this issue.

You decide whether you want to continue paying your premium plan. Spotify will acquire the content it believes is best for all users. You do not control their decisions just because you pay the subscription.

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.

I don't see a reasonable compromise to make here, here's why:

There is nothing wrong with what Rogan has been criticized by Young for; other than many people including Young being ideologically possessed in the opposite direction.

Disagreement is not grounds for censorship.

In any case, it was Young who issued an ultimatum. His music or Joe's podcast, off the platform. There is no room for a compromise there - this is a rude and violent threat.

What Young is doing is not "violent" nor "terrorism". I think you know what those words really mean.

Not all violence is physical. Violence is what you use to force people to change their behavior. There are many forms. Verbal, psychological, social, economic.

I agree with you that it's not terrorism, however.

Violence is a word that is ambiguous for sure. I would still say that it is a long road from most definitions of violence to Neil Young saying that he will remove his music from Spotify if you let Rogan host his podcast there. I mean most negotiation in some way or another uses force but that does not mean it is violence.

Not calling Young a terrorist, I'm using the term "don't negotiate with terrorists" loosely - the point is, when two peers in a network end up in a situation where one is making a violent ultimatum about both of them, the moral high ground is automatically biased in favor of the victim of this ultimatum, not the one who threatened it.

The principle of "don't negotiate with terrorists" is applicable far beyond literal terrorism and I think it's exactly the moral calculus necessary for Spotify to reach the conclusion they did. Network members who think they can yield violent ultimatums to control the administrating entity are toxic to all of their peers.

Spotify is not treating Young and Rogan as peers; only one of them has received an exclusive multimillion contract and extensive promotion, and it isn't Young. Spotify have taken an active decision to promote Rogan, and it is entirely correct that they face consequences for that decision.

It's not disagreement, you are being flippant here. Rogan is promoting alternative facts, such that are life threatening to those who believe them.

Facts are not stories you can agree or disagree on.

I think your beliefs of what is factual and false regarding COVID are actually the opposite of reality.

You likely think the same of me.

If you could magically be granted "objective" factual understanding, your point would be right, and I would agree with you. But you haven't been, in reality you do not know the facts for certain, neither do any of the 270 doctors/etc who wrote that letter trying to censor Joe, neither does Joe, neither does Robert Malone or any other heterodox intellectual on the topic, and neither does Fauci or any other orthodox intellectual on the topic.

Besides mathematics/logical fundamentals, nobody knows facts for sure. Outside of physics we aren't even quite sure. To pretend that you know the facts, and that you know Joe and his guests are wrong, and that their falsehoods are dangerous --- this is altogether delusional, quite frankly. You may very well be right, but you do not know that you are, you cannot know that you are. The subject matter is too complicated.

My apologies for the harsh words. This is how it is.

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Edit: and no, I am not being flippant. I am being objective.

You are promoting censorship?

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