Comment by politicslol | Hacker News Reader

Comment by politicslol | Hacker News Reader

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Joe Rogan is not being censored for his political beliefs. There are many conservative podcasts on Spotify. He is being censored for medical disinformation. If you've listened to JRE over the last 2 years, he regularly (a) disparages the research and conclusions of medical professionals and (b) presents his own anecdotal views as fact. It is not "I think COVID is X", it is "COVID is X". This is neither in the realm of opinion nor in the realm of politics. This is a debate on whose medical authority to trust.

I wish people would have the integrity to speak about the situation honestly.

Discussions with conservatives on issues like this inevitably result in every topic being badly grafted and transposed into a discussion on "left-wing culture". The issue-at-hand is rarely, if ever, the point. Reading conservative commentary on this issue, one would believe that he was banned from Spotify for stating that he believed that small government was preferable to big government. It's completely and utterly fucking disingenuous.

> I wish people would have the integrity to speak about the situation honestly.

None of the removed episodes were about COVID. Actually, only 1 removed episode is from the last 3 years.

As others have pointed out, this isn't about COVID. That said, the notion that some topics cannot be discussed or cannot be discussed in a certain way is not only wrong, it is outrageous.

Yeah, the original post has no context, I assumed they were deleted due to pressure from Neil Young & co about COVID disinformation.

It appears that they were deleted instead due to his use of racial slurs. Which, I guess, is a "gotcha".

With your regards to your second point, I do not know what you are referencing. This goes back to my earlier point. Are you saying that it's outrageous that Spotify would remove podcasts containing racial slurs? Or have you pushed aside the topic-at-hand to discuss some social issue outside of this topic?

As mentioned none of the episodes were about covid for medical information. I major portion where conversations with other comedians that may have touched on culturally edgy topics. It's like they ran a transcript filter for words like Islam

Agree - 100%. There's guys who are payed money to yap all day --- a lot not totally but a lot --- of the talent they interview not Joe is what brings in the listeners --- and that's fine.

Now,

- venture into messing with kids

- screwing with public health

- racism

and ... what were you going to stand on? the serious respect you plowed being the "in guy" for the last 15 mins of fame talking BS? Nobody cares that much. I don't. You're in decline now or out. There's a built in and pre-understood fungibility to the whole business, which puts a smile on my face.

Whether it's Trump, the I-man, or Howard stern a lot of media people like them b/c the bring in viewers. And they are the first to toss them out when the line is crossed. I think Imus (I-man) of "Imus in the morning" learned that in a direct way. So let's not totally dismiss the platform behind the host even if Spotify is OK here.

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