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Spotify reportedly fighting with employees about hosting episodes of Joe Rogan

157 points by undefined1 6y ago

dontcarethrow2 6y ago
So what happens in the future when they have exclusivity and he throws another similar joke in there? Skip the joke or not host the whole episode? Not allow it to begin with?
- notsuoh 6y ago
  Have you referred to the contract? What does the contract say about these situations?
troughway 6y ago
>"Many LGBTQAI+/ally Spotifiers feel unwelcome and alienated because of leadership's response in JRE conversations. What is your message to those employees?" another read. Identity politics. Something tells me if JRE wants to go on Spotify he will have to massively self-censor, which will ultimately make it easy for another grassroots JRE-alike to take his place and do what he originally did - have candid, open and honest discussions about whatever topics come up. Shitty, but I guess he's laughing to the bank if he goes through with it.
- zepto 6y ago
  My guess is that he signed a contract that says he doesn’t have to self-censor. The issue is going to be blowback within Spotify towards the management team that signed the deal.
  - doopy1 6y ago
    I agree. He has a big enough following that he can launch his OWN platform to counteract censorship.
    - dogma1138 6y ago
      He is currently essentially has that he is on every platform, and he isn’t monetized on the likes if YouTube he does his own silly ads.
      - StillBored 6y ago
        Which funny enough, IMHO, are some of the craziest things on his podcasts. I really want his assistant dude who looks up things on the computer at some point to be like "hey it says here that vitamin C hasn't been proven to prevent illness by all these studies"
- mikece 6y ago
  I don’t think Rogan needs Spotify’s money. If he continues as before with zero changes then it’s on Spotify to send the message to all potential partners wether they will be free to be themselves or if they will be censored. I’m sure Spotify’s shareholders will have a lot to say if editorial/censorship decisions reflect negatively on the bottom line. Side note: it’s amazing to me we’re even having the discussion of censorship about a self-described liberal. Imagine what Spotify’s staff would do if they tried to land one of the biggest conservative podcasters?
  - troughway 6y ago
    >Imagine what Spotify’s staff would do if they tried to land one of the biggest conservative podcasters? Bawl their eyes out and chant protest mantras outside of their office building?
    - MSM 6y ago
      Seems like you're making this a little bit more political than you should be. If I work for a bank and I find out they have predatory lending (and I had the luxury of being in demand), I'd likely threaten to quit unless that was changed. We see similar things with companies all over the US and it's not usually seen as employees "bawling their eyes out and chanting mantras". Seems that because this particular instance involves some LGBTQ folks, you assume they're just walking around crying constantly... In reality this will happen the same way every work place dispute has happened for the last hundred years. Spotify can either tell their employees "sorry, we're keeping it as-is, you can turn your badge in if you are against this decision" or find their employees too valuable and find some middle ground with JRE.
      - troughway 6y ago
        That is a terrible analogy to apply here. "In reality", these disgruntled Spotify employees will take to social media with hashtags, cancelling and other trite bullshit in an effort to make the company look in the worst possible light. You'll hear accusations of sexual assault done by the upper management to everyone from the janitorial staff all the way to some senior employee. All kinds of shit will come out of the woodwork. You'll find out the company is toxic, misogynistic and that it is a horrible place for people to work. You'll hear how some employees go home crying every night because they feel assaulted. You're blind to the fact that anyone using the term "ally" in any of this is implicitly labeling anyone not with them an "enemy". This is warring language, and the whole thing is very tribal. But yes, lets go with predatory lending.
- tootie 6y ago
  The $100M comes from Spotify's broad appeal to sensible listeners of all walks of life. It's why all major media are terrified of scandal. There are niches for every type of opinion but there's a reason you make more money working for Spotify or Netflix or network TV than Infowars.
- sp332 6y ago
  It's not really identity politics when Rogan is the one calling out the identity groups. Maybe not all trans* people have the same opinions or identify strongly as a group, but when Rogan calls them a social contagion, claims they have an ideologically-driven agenda, and says "Maybe if you live with crazy bitches all the time, they fuckin' turn you into one?", it's not that weird that they would have a uniformly negative response.
mikece 6y ago
I’m curious what his contract with them stipulates on these matters. As for the employees, they could contact Rogan and either ask to come on the show to discuss what they find so offensive. Joe will talk to anyone, let them have their say and explain their point of view. Arguing to censor his episode history only sends the message that Spotify isn’t a platform for intellectual curiosity and free speech.
- MereInterest 6y ago
  > As for the employees, they could contact Rogan and either ask to come on the show to discuss what they find so offensive. If you think that somebody is spreading misinformation and is not arguing in good faith, why on earth would you discuss things on a platform where that person controls the editing? That sounds like a recipe for giving somebody the air of legitimacy while having no chance of convincing anybody.
  - bdibs 6y ago
    Except Rogan’s podcast is full length and unedited, which is exactly why he chose the format.
    - jjeaff 6y ago
      They do cut things out at times. Which is also why they don't love stream it anymore. They needed to be able to cut out certain things. Though I don't know what their criteria is.
      - s__s 6y ago
        That’s not true. The reason they stopped live streaming is because sketchy channels were cutting clips mid stream and re-posting. Essentially pirating the content to make a bunch of cash before they had the opportunity to release the official clips.
        jjeaff 6y ago
t_sawyer 6y ago
Lol but they’ve got no problem with Spotify hosting Eminem songs since it’s inception? This is ridiculous.
- JoshMcguigan 6y ago
  The article is about an internal employee group raising concerns that the leadership team decided in favor of hosting the episodes. I’d guess the group would have similar opinions about the Eminem songs.
- grapehut 6y ago
  Eminem never said that trans-women shouldn't be allowed to compete in womens-MMA fighting.
  - troughway 6y ago
    Is that what this is about? Then I guess we can expect the top womans MMA fighters to all be trans. Well done!
  - Diesel555 6y ago
    You can't just pick one thing Joe said, that someone else didn't say, and use that as an argument. That's almost always going to be true. What are the chances Eminem would talk about trans woman MMA fighting? I'd argue very very low. The fact Eminem didn't say this obscure quote doesn't discount the OP pointing out a hypocrisy. I could easily take one of many Eminem quotes (I found a few... but not appropriate to post here) and say "Joe never said that." I'm not taking a stance on one side or another here for the original post, just pointing out a bad argument.
  - mikece 6y ago
    And Joe is an expert in the field of MMA. He didn’t just say that trans women should not be allowed to fight in women’s MMA but cited medical science to back his opinion. Outside of women’s MMA Joe is all for trans rights but in the case of women’s MMA it’s his opinion that a trans woman will end up literally killing someone born with XX chromosomes who still identifies as female (I don’t know of a less clumsy way to say that which is weird).
zepto 6y ago
This seems antithetical to everything Joe Rogan presents himself as in his show. I think it’s entirely reasonable for Spotify employees to want a catalog without what they think of as transphobic material. But it seems completely incompatible with hosting Joe Rogan’s show. I would presume that the contract gives Spotify no editorial control over the content. This is going to be interesting.
- dx87 6y ago
  Yeah, I don't know how it's going to work. He's said previously on his show that he only signed the deal with Spotify because they were going to be hands off and not control who he could talk to, including Alex Jones. As soon as his past episodes were uploaded to Spotify, it was clear that someone was mislead/lied to. Some episodes weren't uploaded to Spotify, like Alex Jones and one of his friends who's a flat earther, but also some comedians that got cancelled by twitter mobs.
- prepend 6y ago
  Rogan has frequently stated that Spotify places no editorial restrictions on his episodes so it will be interesting to see what happens if Spotify chooses to remove some episodes based on content. That being said, I wish they would provide more episodes of the transphobic content. The single episode cited with the author of the book about trans male teens I don’t think is transphobic. I’ve listened to the episode and don’t understand the complaints. The author researched the topic and interviews many subjects and presents data. That’s discussion and research, not transphobia. I think the challenge I have in these topics is that we’re in an age where there are lots of people with voices, and there are complaints about everything. It’s hard to filter out unreasonable complaints and determine what’s important. This is balanced against genuinely needing to protect and empower vulnerable populations where there are people advocating and perpetuating violence against vulnerable populations. But there needs to be some “evidence bundle protocol” where we can collect all the stuff that supports claims to help people accept or reject.
asquabventured 6y ago
Identity politics will destroy our country. Whatever happened to freedom of thought? Shameful
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Identity politics will destroy our country The idea of “our country” is, fundamentally, an expression of identity politics. Your disagreement is with other’s choice of primary identity, not with “identity politics” generally.
  - asquabventured 6y ago
    Wrong my issue is with the recent liberal trend that a humans race, creed, sexual orientation, religious preference, outward appearance, etc are an individuals defining characteristic. And if you don't conform to the bucket they want to place you based on that identity they have created for you that you will be cancelled. It's extremely polarizing and destabilizing to society.
    - nl 6y ago
      You'd have a point if the president wasn't trying to cancel kneeling NFL players. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/sport/amp/american-football/44910040 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/sport/amp/american-...
    - toiletfuneral 6y ago
      This is fever swamp boomer shit, go outdoors and stop listening to Fox
    - 3131s 6y ago
      You are missing the point.
    - 4ggr0 6y ago
      These things are literally things which define you as a person, though. Of course there's more, but what makes you think that these things don't define a person? I also don't get the "You have to fit in a bucket" theory. What's an example you've experienced?
zepto 6y ago
Also noticeable - business insider’s reporting on his recent episode with Tim Kennedy is a total misrepresentation. Edit: The vice piece also misrepresents him. Edit: I’d go further than ‘misrepresent’ - they lied about what he said.
- rbecker 6y ago
  Want to explain, for those of us not keeping track?
  - zepto 6y ago
    Sure - here is one of the claims made by business insider: “Joe Rogan made the inflammatory and false claim in a podcast episode on Friday that Caitlyn Jenner could be transgender as a result of living with the Kardashian women.” This is a false statement, which I would call a lie. Joe Rogan spent 20 minutes talking to Tim Kennedy about how about the difficulty of doing comedy in the environment of political correctness. He illustrated this by talking about a joke he told during a stand up routine. In that joke, he spent the first half talking about how his own masculinity was being taken away piece by piece because he lives with 3 women by a process of continuous attrition. Then he made the joke of suggesting that this might be what happened to Bruce Jenner. This simply isn’t the same as what the reports say. If you believe he was making this as a ‘claim’, you would also have to believe that he was making the same claim about himself. Both statements were made in the explicit context of explaining the challenges of making jokes about socially sensitive issues. It’s more than just a misrepresentation - it’s a lie to say that he claimed Bruce Jenner was turned trans by the Kardashian women. He didn’t make that claim. He used it as an example of a joke which is hard to tell because it’s politically incorrect. It would be fair to say he made a joke that many people see as transphobic.
dx87 6y ago
I guess they're focusing on the JRE podcast because it's so popular, but they already host podcasts that you'd think their "LGBTQAI+/ally" employees would be up in arms about. Just a quick look through the recommended podcasts in the web player, and I see Ben Shapiro's podcast on there, who has much more extreme views on LGBT rights than Joe Rogan does.
- dogma1138 6y ago
  Rogan’s views aren’t extreme no sexual reassignment for minors and no XY in female sports isn’t an extreme view.
  - dx87 6y ago
    Right, I personally don't find it extreme, but the Spotify employees seem to, even though there are already podcasts hosted by people who think LGBT people shouldn't be allowed to get married.
  - amanzi 6y ago
    You're right, and what really grates me is how anyone who raises similar opinions/questions is instantly labelled transphobic and told to shut up. The Motherboard/Vice article that is referenced in the article (https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg8jq4/spotify-joe-rogan-transphobic https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg8jq4/spotify-joe-rogan-...) clearly states as fact that Joe Rogan is transphobic, but for anyone willing to listen Rogan's opinions will know that just isn't true.
    - UncleMeat 6y ago
      He wasn't labeled a transphobe for being interested in a discussion of professional sporting rules, transition, and hormones. He was labeled a transphobe for using phrases like "a man in a dress" and carelessly platforming people who use similar phrases. We can observe a lot of people successfully discussing and navigating complex issues like sporting regulations without being called transphobic because they don't resort to nasty phrases like Rogan does.
  - 6y ago
lvturner 6y ago
Perhaps I am naive, but for me something simple like: "Warning, the following content may offend some listeners and contain factual inaccuracies. The content presented does not represent the views of blah blah" Would help Certainly, I appreciate Facebook's "Sensitive Content" screen, and wish it was used more widely on content.
- linuxftw 6y ago
  This warning is implied for all information, all the time.
  - krageon 6y ago
    Originally this comment irritated me a little, but to be quite honest I think it is reasonable and desirable to retrain everyone to think this way. If some content is a big problem for you, then you can and should definitely stop consuming it - warning stickers aren't going to help you do that and will never cover the nuance of sensibility you have as a real human being anyway.
    - lvturner 6y ago
      In a world of infinite scroll and autoplay, they are occasionally appreciated, however.
    - linuxftw 6y ago
      The problem people have with my comment is that it undermines the implicit assumption that 'authorities' are inherently trustworthy. Sense of trust, sense of authority, those are very powerful emotional motivators. Challenging those ideas is cause to challenge one's self, and that's uncomfortable for many people.
emmelaich 6y ago
Sort of relevant. An Australian Press Council adjudication against "The Australian" newspaper: https://www.presscouncil.org.au/document-search/adj-1783/ https://www.presscouncil.org.au/document-search/adj-1783/ > The publication said the word “epidemic” is appropriate when reporting the exponential increases in those attending gender clinics and the term “social contagion” is an accepted term in social science and was taken from areas such as anorexia and suicide attempts, and where its relevance to adolescents, attitudes and behaviors is widely documented Adjudication: > However, the Council considers there is public interest in vigorous public debate particularly when it concerns submissions made to a parliamentary inquiry. The Council considers that to the extent there was offence and distress it was justified in the public interest.
CivBase 6y ago
Hosting content should not be treated the same supporting it. Plain and simple. A host should have the right to curate the (legal) content they host according to whatever rules they want, but simply hosting it alone should not be treated as tacit endorcement. Otherwise, discenting voices will be left without a platform.
- throwaway13337 6y ago
  Curation is opinion. Mostly, that opinion is that you should really be mad about something because that's what gets the engagement numbers to go up. That's what they choose to show you. Media platforms are shaping us stronger than anything else. Allowing them to hold a status as unbiased when obviously not causes damage. JRE should be able to be hosted but that's not because Spotify (or Facebook or twitter) should hold a special protected status.
- wp381640 6y ago
  They're not just hosting it - they bought it for $100 million
  - CivBase 6y ago
    That's a good point. That effectively makes Spotify a publisher rather than a platform. I'm getting sick of companies trying to straddle the line between the two. Even if Spotify wasn't effectively publishing the Joe Rogan Experience, I do think Spotify's employees have grounds to complain. Spotify has not built themselves as an open platform for free thought - they have built themselves as a curated music streaming service. Employees who do not want to support an open platform for free thought could be justifiably upset. I'm just sick of open platforms in general being expected by external forces to curate their content like a publisher.
    - s__s 6y ago
      > they have built themselves as a curated music streaming service Not really. The expectation is that as a paying customer you’ll have access to the music you’re interested in. Their shtick has never been curation.
spodek 6y ago
Do I misunderstand their motives or should we remove Huckleberry Finn and Mein Kampf from libraries and school curricula too?
graeme 6y ago
This is rather funny, because all the incentives are backwards. Joe Rogan used to be available on rss, and anyone could listen in any podcast player. Now Spotify bought him out, limiting his reach and making him only available on spotify. If the employees succeed, Rogan will revert to rss and become....more widely available. I am deeply opposed to Spotify’s efforts to close off the podcast ecosystem, so I hope the employees succeed. This does highlight a change in what Spotify is trying to do. They’re attempting to become a podcast publisher, rather than an app with podcasts available. With music they’re merely a conduit for the most part. (Not sure if Rogan has left rss yet, but this wouldn’t change the argument. He’s due to if he hasn’t)
- whoisjuan 6y ago
  But RSS distribution is hard to monetize. That's why a big part of the JRE podcast business model was uploading the videos to YouTube and also create all the highlights and such. But in YouTube they got several videos demonetized, so there's really no escape. This is the distribution problem. If you don't have distribution and rely on others for that you have to play by their rules even if they are ridiculous or broken. I think that the canonical solution for Spotify would be to not run ads on the "controversial" episodes. Either way it doesn't affect JR since his contract seems to be lump sums of money for keep creating the content.
  - manquer 6y ago
    Being on Spotify and being exclusively on Spotify is not the same. Given his reach he can make good money doing commericals within the podcast itself and do perhaps commerical free deal with Spotify. Distribution is not that hard, discovery is hard . Monetization is hard. Distribution is fairly easy today , it is not like 80s or 90s where distribution meant cassette and cd in every retailer. In 2000s the tech was possible but not cheap enough for a independent producer. Today the tech is accessible too.
    - whoisjuan 6y ago
      > Distribution is not that hard, discovery is hard I think you and I have different definitions of distribution. I'm not talking about being able to "distribute" your content per se. I'm talking about getting enough reach which is a way harder problem. Just because you can upload videos to YouTube doesn't mean that you will automatically get traffic. Distribution in this context is not only the podcast being able to have content in x or y platform, but rather having prime time treatment so it reaches more audiences.
S_A_P 6y ago
Joe is a centrist in leftist clothing. I honestly think this is a good thing. I dont 100% agree with his point of view but we need to figure out how to compromise or just expect a red vs blue civil war. I don’t want this at all. I don’t want to shut down anyone that has a different point of view from me either. Why are we so intent on being right and not compromising??
- S_A_P 6y ago
  What specifically is middle of the road Joe Rogan saying that is “anti transgender”? Serious question.
  - sp332 6y ago
    "They have this agenda," he said, "and this agenda is very ideologically driven that anyone who even thinks they might be trans should be trans, are trans, and the more trans people the better. The more kids that transition the better." https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a33391944/joe-rogan-abigail-shrier-interview-transphobia/ https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a33391944/joe-rogan... but you can probably find other sources, it's a direct quote.
    - pfarnsworth 6y ago
      What about that statement is anti-transgender? If anything it sounds like he is anti-transgender-extreme-activist. You can put me in that camp as well, I despise those that want to politicize innocent people for their own power. And I fully support transgender rights, my high school friend's son in transgender from age 5 so I've seen this first hand especially during the most formative years.
    - ALittleLight 6y ago
      That might be right or wrong, but I don't see how it's transphobic. If I said Catholic people have an ideological agenda to make more people Catholic, they want to make their kids Catholic, they want to make your kids Catholic, they want to make YOU Catholic - that might be right or wrong, depending on the Catholics, but I don't see how saying it would demonstrate a prejudice against Catholics.
alphachloride 6y ago
What constitutes transphobic exactly? Is it in the eye of the beholder, like porn: you'll know it when you see it?
- gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
  It’s fundamentally postmodern: impact matters, not intent. Meaning: if someone’s triggered and distressed by anything and you trigger them, you’re in the wrong, not them.
  - dolguldur 6y ago
    I never thought about it like this but this covers surprisingly much of what's currently happening.
    - gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
      If you're interested in understanding how postmodernism has been subverting meaning, motivating chaos, and how it's married to activism watch this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xILBpDOqD-A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xILBpDOqD-A It does a good job summarizing key ideas from Derrida, et. al. At the end of the day, people are frantically grasping for power by spreading doubt into all modes of communication, institutions, cultural ideas, etc.
  - johnisgood 6y ago
    Some people need some stoicism in their life for sure.
  - tasuki 6y ago
    I am distressed by people thinking that's a reasonable point of view.
- sp332 6y ago
  He had Abigail Shrier as a guest to promote her book called Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, so that's kind of a bright line?
hervature 6y ago
I am posting this because there seems to be a large misunderstanding about the Alex Jones episodes being "removed" by Spotify. I am also going to give you a warning. I am going to post a link to Infowars, yes, that Infowars. It is one of the few sources that actually attempts to clarify the story behind the "removed" episodes. If you are a reasonable person, you would take this opportunity to reevaluate the sources you listen to that have been pandering to their readers about how controversial Joe Rogan is and question why these sources weren't interested in actually getting to the bottom of the removed episodes instead of causing sensationalism. Here it is, according to Alex Jones [1], the reason why certain Joe Rogan episodes were removed from Spotify is because Joe Rogan gets to keep hosting his favorite 100 episodes on Youtube. A shrewd business decision as Spotify gets time to decide how to handle the Alex Jones episodes and Joe gets to have his most profit making episodes still on Youtube. Now, ask yourself, why is it that this news is coming from such a controversial figure? You may call him a racist, bigot, transphobe, xenophobe, or whatever. But you can't deny that the media failing to actually report on the story and the real story coming from Alex Jones just adds credibility to all his other views. Be it Sandy Hook, George Soros, or psychic vampirism. [1] - https://www.infowars.com/alex-jones-spotify-is-not-censoring-joe-rogan/ https://www.infowars.com/alex-jones-spotify-is-not-censoring...
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  Why would Rogan tell Jones instead of his fans?
  - hervature 6y ago
    That's a good question. Contractual obligations with Spotify? I've been pondering this for a while. It does seem somewhat plausible because some of the episodes removed weren't controversial. Rogan also hasn't commented on this. It's also unclear whether he would deny it even if it was false. I've also been wondering why would Alex Jones lie about this? If he was going to create a narrative, I would expect it to have some crazy "Democrat elite controlling the media" bend to it.
    - 6y ago
not_a_moth 6y ago
As a long time listener I will go to bat for Joe's show, he is a loving, rational, open person, and he simply does not platform hateful people or not challenge unjust statements. Some media, political actors, and certain people who don't listen to his show want to spin him as a hate speech alt-righter, especially now on this election year since he platforms Bernie and Tulsi but is against Biden. Find the amount of baseless slander against him disturbing.
- jjj123 6y ago
  I’ve only listened to a few of Joe’s interviews but I really disagree that he pushes back often at all. He kind of seems like a golden retriever, eager to agree and please and genuinely non judgemental about the majority of his guests’ opinions. It makes for great conversations, and also a great platform for shitty people.
  - StillBored 6y ago
    I think he pushes back against a fair number of things. But he treats his guests with respect, and won't push peoples buttons (for example, look at some of the vegan guests/etc). So he frequently lets things slide, and if you listen, you can frequently hear it, just like you can tell when your friends are doing the "sure, lets change the topic now" thing around you to avoid conflict. The veggie thing is probably one of those areas that at some point someone will show up and be like, its possible to body build, live a healthy life without your tst supplements and eating raw deer. And he will end up having a reasoned conversation with them. Maybe, he has a lot of fairly unscientific beliefs around nutrition AFAIK. BTW: Not sure I really agree with either of you, but there are is some very downvote heavy people in this topic, and I've been upvoting a lot of things I think have been unfairly downvoted for expressing fairly reasoned opinions. So have an upvote.. :)
- StillBored 6y ago
  Yah, people on both sides condemn him because he will have Alex Jones on his show one week and then Bernie the next, two people about as far from each other as possible. He reminds me a bit of Charlie Rose's ability to just talk to people on both sides of the political spectrum. And do it without creating a lot of drama. And like Charlie Rose, he will call people's BS (and let them call his), but then move on before it gets heated. So everyone can find something to hate about him if they try for 1/2 a second, but in reality I think those people are the problem, which is actually one of ongoing central themes he carries, when he talks about how he doesn't read the comments on his episodes/etc anymore. Personally, I believe there is a place for the social shunning (and alex jones might be one of them), but I'm also of the opinion its being wielded for petty/trivial things by people who are only interested in censoring people they don't agree with. This article being one of them. The guy literally has something like 3k+ hours of conversations online, and they find a couple sentences they find challenges their world and they are trying to deplatform him. I'm actually a fairly large supporter of "you can do anything you want in your bedroom" which extends to marrying anyone you please. But I don't really need gay pride flags, and lunch and learns about it at work. The people trying to shout him down are doing more to harm their cause IMHO than JRE ever could.
anonu 6y ago
Cancel culture at it's best. What happened to freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, freedom to choose. If Spotify were smart they wouldn't censor any of the podcasts. Instead they would put a Twitter like message warning the user... As a way to satisfy the cancel culture crowd. I don't care about Joe or his views. But I do care about people having choice and freedom
- tmpz22 6y ago
  I don’t know if complete deregulation is the answer, there are some pretty shitty podcasts out there pushing QAnon, nazi, and just plain fake, information which vulnerable groups latch onto and amplify to the extent that society is severely impacted. I’m in favor of a hybrid approach where extreme hate content is tracked, called out, and in extreme cases deplatformed. The Joe Rogan platform is not at that point in my view, it’s merely gathering the lowest common denominator of podcast viewers which unfortunately really likes conspiracy content and content whose only merit is to push against academia and domain matter experts.
- threeseed 6y ago
  Spotify has the right to choose what is on their platform. Spotify employees have the right to voice their concerns if the company they work for is alienating them. But I guess that's not the kind of freedom you are interested in.
  - xupybd 6y ago
    They have every right but they have an opportunity to avoid cancel culture and cash in on the most popular pod cast ever produced. Joe Rogan is popular with the masses, very popular. This tells me his views are probably mainstream. Mainstream enough to make a lot of money out of without worrying about backlash.
  - liability 6y ago
    > But I guess that's not the kind of freedom you are interested in. I do not see a suggestion by anonu that the people they disagree with should be deprived of their freedom. To criticize people for saying something is not the same as saying they shouldn't have the right to say it. That would only be the case if somebody had an absolutely authoritarian mindset. It unnerves me how quick some are to conflate these positions, as though they view the world through an authoritarian lens and assume others must as well. "People shouldn't say mean things" and "People shouldn't have the right to say mean things" are not equivalent statements unless you are an authoritarian.
Mathnerd314 6y ago
"Vice reported", "Vice said"... link the original article: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg8jq4/spotify-joe-rogan-transphobic https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg8jq4/spotify-joe-rogan-...
fareesh 6y ago
If you are a Muslim or Christian working at Spotify and Rogan hosts Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins or (Hypothetically) Christopher Hitchens, who come on the show and proceed to lambast the beliefs held by people of these religions, is Spotify expected to seriously entertain this protest and take down the episodes? Frankly I see zero difference between this and what is happening here. It is a protest against blasphemy. If this is truly not a religious topic but a scientific one, then what is the harm in a qualified person coming on the show and presenting some facts and drawing conclusions? Why not offer to go on the show, bring these people back on and challenge their position? Rebut all of the points and present the flaws and reasons why that conclusion is incorrect. That is part of the scientific method. Or has western society reached a stage where the goal is to deplatform the positions that don't align with one's own, instead of debating them and prevailing through argument? Why is it that so often the first course of action is to censor and deplatform? There seems to be far too much dogma in the discourse. Furthermore small fringe groups are claiming to speak on behalf of their entire identity group. This too is extremely bigoted. Not everyone in the same identity group believes the same things.
slowhadoken 6y ago
Some argue this issue is about free speech, others say it’s just business. I believe in free speech so if Joe gets pulled down then I’m canceling my subscription.
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trophycase 6y ago
Get over yourselves. Jesus. You work for a giant corporation anyway let's not pretend like you have some magical moral high ground.
StringyBob 6y ago
As a Spotify premium subscriber, I don’t particularly like that a chunk of my subscription is going to their ‘exclusive podcasts’, while musicians I listen to are getting minimal payouts. I’d be much more comfortable with my subscription being split amongst the things I choose to listen to.
ALittleLight 6y ago
There's a quote in the Vice article that this seems to be based on discussing a recent guest Shrier who wrote a book against transgender youth. "She also described wanting to transition as a "contagion" with the potential to infect other children, an entirely scientifically baseless idea, Men's Health noted." The idea that transgender identification is, in part, a social contagion, is the subject of academic research. [1] It seems odd and inappropriate to me that Vice, and consequently Business Insider, cite "Men's Health" magazine as the definitive source on what is or isn't scientific and ignore actual academic research on the topic. It's also dishonest that they phrased it to elide the "social" part of the phrase, to make it seem as if the guest were claiming trans identification is communicated as a disease is. Articles like this are something of a depressing reminder that journalists are basically bloggers who quickly bang out a story about current events for their audience. I think, ideally, journalists would try a bit harder to be fair and impartial. 1 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6095578/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6095578/
- 4ggr0 6y ago
  This reminds me of people back in the day saying that homosexuality is a "disease" which is being spread by homosexuality. I'm not a scientist, but isn't it just the fact of being educated that such exist? If I don't know about transgenderism, or I know about it but people view it as a negative thing, I would never get the idea of being it myself, right? I just live my whole life with a strange feeling of not really knowing who I am. If, on the other hand, I know about it and the culture is accepting of it, I can finally know who I am because I feel like I found myself. I really doubt that people start hormone-therapy just because they heard about transgenderism and were somehow brainwashed into thinking that they are trans as well...It actually sounds like a disgusting theory to me, could come from a certain german group in the 1930's. If I was born 100 years prior, I probably never would've known that I have ADHD or am Bi-Sexual. Now with the internet all the information is available to me and I suddenly get to know myself. I doubt that the internet or the culture made me bi or ADHD. I just found out thanks to those things :) People back in the day were labeled as dumb people because they couldn't read, now we know that there's a thing called dyslexia. Anyways, sorry for going on a tangent, just what I thought when reading this discussion.
dmingod666 6y ago
In most places and industries other than IT employees do their work and get paid. IT is the only industry where they seem like they are activists first and then employees later. I doubt they would be able to do this sort of a thing in for example an insurance company or a petroleum company. I probably think its a mix of scarcity of talent and the political leaning of silicon valley. Either ways, looks like people hired to do something else are calling the shots and people that are supposed to make decisions are getting walked all over. Any other industry would put these activists in place and be told to focus on doing work or quit and get into politics.
sneak 6y ago
Spotify also have up a ton of gangsta rap about premeditated murder and physical abuse of women. We don't need more censorship. If you try to cancel publishing platforms like facebook or spotify for the content they host, the end result of success there means that you won't be able to listen to a single song with a swear word or sex/drug references it in, as everything is now cloud based. I hope that doesn’t happen. I don’t like Dr Dre or Biggie as human beings who make bad moral choices, but I enjoy their music that describes violent and abhorrent acts.
iconjack 6y ago
I wonder if any of these concerned employees have ever listened to the rap songs Spotify so proudly hosts and promotes.
specialist 6y ago
FWIW, highest recommendation for Philosophy Tube and ContraPoints. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_Tube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_Tube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ContraPoints https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ContraPoints If you want to learn about something, go to the source. I'm now +50/yo (SWM) and have had out LGBTQ friends, family, schoolmates, coworkers most of my life. One of my cousins did gender reassignment 30 years ago. On one hand I can't believe we're still talking about this stuff. On the other, I felt like I needed to understand what people are arguing about today. (Recommendations please.) For instance, to better accommodate some of my besties, I've been actively practicing using singular they pronouns in my every day speech. Old dog, new tricks. Fortunately, they're patient with me. I keep thinking about something Marilyn Manson said in the aftermath of Columbine. The reactionaries were blaming angry music and video games. (Of course.) Michael Moore asked Manson what he'd say to the kids. Manson replied that he wouldn't say anything, that he'd just listen. I agree. So whenever one of these social, cultural food fights flares up, I really don't give two shits what commentators think. I already know what the peanut gallery thinks. I can't not know. Rather, I just want to hear from the people affected.
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- moneytide1 6y ago
  The recent Rogan episode was a virtual call, and the guest at one point said "it is not good that this is what we are spending time talking about". Then they proceeded to talk about it for a few more minutes before I turned it off and did something else. They say many words with interesting variations and perspectives - they make time for it on a weekly broadcast program for a few hundred thousand people who also talk about it. "Stop talking about it." -Morgan Freeman (when asked on 60 Minutes about something else thought not to be discussed in polite company) But if it should be discussed then we should make time for it. Sex (similar to opioid brain response because evolution causes us to associate reproduction with pleasure) is in the background of everyone's adult interactions by default. You introduce your friends to each other and association allows you to have a "vote" in the person that would be born in potentially 9 months from that evening of acquaintance (1-2 years realistically, since there is the expectation of courting around shared village getting to know each others social circle). Therefore "sex" was discussed just by saying "Hello Sally, meet my friend Harry." Without saying anything about sex. Or variations on it. Or money paid for it. Or ways. Crude jokes are rude. An expletive every 10 words is rude. Podcast discussed that collapsing empires (post Nero Roman centuries) experienced similar fetish advertisement and public displays, suggestions or anything remotely topical in debates and decisions among elected officials and lawmakers. As a group of friends, in the past, you may have discussed the amount of doe in the clearing next to your house, and by your friends knowledge of a herd with mature bucks routinely grazing near their own prairie - food could then be set out (Breadcrumb Trail) to introduce herds and increase the herd mass over a few seasons. There is a sweet spot, and some states have different kill limits set by using tax revenue to curate&monitor local herds (that migrate across county lines), but you are essentially "pruning" a population (overfishing takes much longer to return from than if we allow the mass to hover at an ideal size to continue to farm from. See Joel Salatin diaper/teenage/nursing home grass metaphor to describe sigmoid curve growth rate of "solar collector" for optimal grazing routine[1]). Ideal to lure the dense, seasoned buck that has fathered many children using a female call away from where you know a herd could be so that the productive mass never sees the kill and can feel safe enough around the acreage to continue and remain "fenced" by comfort. They will nibble on commercial farmland perimeter and thus there are higher kill limits in states with lots of agriculture and intentional "buffer" land for herds to graze (some farm plots are set aside and meant as feed for wild venison source). Here on HN about a year ago there was a journal suggesting a link to several decades of birth control in the sewage of cities running into natural water drainage and increasingly feminized fish populations (therefore reduced numbers). Regardless of the sewage runoff, birth control has been available to several generations of mothers. This means decades of manually overriding natural hormone regimen to drastically reduce fertility "temporarily" (on purpose for sex without "consequence") until the Pill's effect "wears off". Some mothers had their children before trying "the Pill" - maybe there are entire generations of "pure" mothers who never used birth control. Could blood tests verify this? If Chinese one child per family era preferred male fetus, then there are fewer fertile Chinese females now. If there are fewer potent American males (self castration to change gender), then that means there is a surplus of American females without fertile male mate. [1] https://youtu.be/O7KEHzUl0tg https://youtu.be/O7KEHzUl0tg
mikedilger 6y ago
Joe Rogan makes an apology and a retraction: https://www.instagram.com/p/CFSYnUFA8Fb/?igshid=z7u5pv3sjemu https://www.instagram.com/p/CFSYnUFA8Fb/?igshid=z7u5pv3sjemu Given the vast amount of conversations he records and releases, it doesn't seem suprising in the least that he would make a mistake here and there.

157 points by undefined1 6y ago

So what happens in the future when they have exclusivity and he throws another similar joke in there? Skip the joke or not host the whole episode? Not allow it to begin with?

notsuoh 6y ago
Have you referred to the contract? What does the contract say about these situations?

troughway 6y ago

>"Many LGBTQAI+/ally Spotifiers feel unwelcome and alienated because of leadership's response in JRE conversations. What is your message to those employees?" another read. Identity politics. Something tells me if JRE wants to go on Spotify he will have to massively self-censor, which will ultimately make it easy for another grassroots JRE-alike to take his place and do what he originally did - have candid, open and honest discussions about whatever topics come up. Shitty, but I guess he's laughing to the bank if he goes through with it.

zepto 6y ago
My guess is that he signed a contract that says he doesn’t have to self-censor. The issue is going to be blowback within Spotify towards the management team that signed the deal.
- doopy1 6y ago
  I agree. He has a big enough following that he can launch his OWN platform to counteract censorship.
  - dogma1138 6y ago
    He is currently essentially has that he is on every platform, and he isn’t monetized on the likes if YouTube he does his own silly ads.
    - StillBored 6y ago
      Which funny enough, IMHO, are some of the craziest things on his podcasts. I really want his assistant dude who looks up things on the computer at some point to be like "hey it says here that vitamin C hasn't been proven to prevent illness by all these studies"
mikece 6y ago
I don’t think Rogan needs Spotify’s money. If he continues as before with zero changes then it’s on Spotify to send the message to all potential partners wether they will be free to be themselves or if they will be censored. I’m sure Spotify’s shareholders will have a lot to say if editorial/censorship decisions reflect negatively on the bottom line. Side note: it’s amazing to me we’re even having the discussion of censorship about a self-described liberal. Imagine what Spotify’s staff would do if they tried to land one of the biggest conservative podcasters?
- troughway 6y ago
  >Imagine what Spotify’s staff would do if they tried to land one of the biggest conservative podcasters? Bawl their eyes out and chant protest mantras outside of their office building?
  - MSM 6y ago
    Seems like you're making this a little bit more political than you should be. If I work for a bank and I find out they have predatory lending (and I had the luxury of being in demand), I'd likely threaten to quit unless that was changed. We see similar things with companies all over the US and it's not usually seen as employees "bawling their eyes out and chanting mantras". Seems that because this particular instance involves some LGBTQ folks, you assume they're just walking around crying constantly... In reality this will happen the same way every work place dispute has happened for the last hundred years. Spotify can either tell their employees "sorry, we're keeping it as-is, you can turn your badge in if you are against this decision" or find their employees too valuable and find some middle ground with JRE.
    - troughway 6y ago
      That is a terrible analogy to apply here. "In reality", these disgruntled Spotify employees will take to social media with hashtags, cancelling and other trite bullshit in an effort to make the company look in the worst possible light. You'll hear accusations of sexual assault done by the upper management to everyone from the janitorial staff all the way to some senior employee. All kinds of shit will come out of the woodwork. You'll find out the company is toxic, misogynistic and that it is a horrible place for people to work. You'll hear how some employees go home crying every night because they feel assaulted. You're blind to the fact that anyone using the term "ally" in any of this is implicitly labeling anyone not with them an "enemy". This is warring language, and the whole thing is very tribal. But yes, lets go with predatory lending.
tootie 6y ago
The $100M comes from Spotify's broad appeal to sensible listeners of all walks of life. It's why all major media are terrified of scandal. There are niches for every type of opinion but there's a reason you make more money working for Spotify or Netflix or network TV than Infowars.
sp332 6y ago
It's not really identity politics when Rogan is the one calling out the identity groups. Maybe not all trans* people have the same opinions or identify strongly as a group, but when Rogan calls them a social contagion, claims they have an ideologically-driven agenda, and says "Maybe if you live with crazy bitches all the time, they fuckin' turn you into one?", it's not that weird that they would have a uniformly negative response.

mikece 6y ago

I’m curious what his contract with them stipulates on these matters. As for the employees, they could contact Rogan and either ask to come on the show to discuss what they find so offensive. Joe will talk to anyone, let them have their say and explain their point of view. Arguing to censor his episode history only sends the message that Spotify isn’t a platform for intellectual curiosity and free speech.

MereInterest 6y ago
> As for the employees, they could contact Rogan and either ask to come on the show to discuss what they find so offensive. If you think that somebody is spreading misinformation and is not arguing in good faith, why on earth would you discuss things on a platform where that person controls the editing? That sounds like a recipe for giving somebody the air of legitimacy while having no chance of convincing anybody.
- bdibs 6y ago
  Except Rogan’s podcast is full length and unedited, which is exactly why he chose the format.
  - jjeaff 6y ago
    They do cut things out at times. Which is also why they don't love stream it anymore. They needed to be able to cut out certain things. Though I don't know what their criteria is.
    - s__s 6y ago
      That’s not true. The reason they stopped live streaming is because sketchy channels were cutting clips mid stream and re-posting. Essentially pirating the content to make a bunch of cash before they had the opportunity to release the official clips.
      - jjeaff 6y ago

t_sawyer 6y ago

Lol but they’ve got no problem with Spotify hosting Eminem songs since it’s inception? This is ridiculous.

JoshMcguigan 6y ago
The article is about an internal employee group raising concerns that the leadership team decided in favor of hosting the episodes. I’d guess the group would have similar opinions about the Eminem songs.
grapehut 6y ago
Eminem never said that trans-women shouldn't be allowed to compete in womens-MMA fighting.
- troughway 6y ago
  Is that what this is about? Then I guess we can expect the top womans MMA fighters to all be trans. Well done!
- Diesel555 6y ago
  You can't just pick one thing Joe said, that someone else didn't say, and use that as an argument. That's almost always going to be true. What are the chances Eminem would talk about trans woman MMA fighting? I'd argue very very low. The fact Eminem didn't say this obscure quote doesn't discount the OP pointing out a hypocrisy. I could easily take one of many Eminem quotes (I found a few... but not appropriate to post here) and say "Joe never said that." I'm not taking a stance on one side or another here for the original post, just pointing out a bad argument.
- mikece 6y ago
  And Joe is an expert in the field of MMA. He didn’t just say that trans women should not be allowed to fight in women’s MMA but cited medical science to back his opinion. Outside of women’s MMA Joe is all for trans rights but in the case of women’s MMA it’s his opinion that a trans woman will end up literally killing someone born with XX chromosomes who still identifies as female (I don’t know of a less clumsy way to say that which is weird).

zepto 6y ago

This seems antithetical to everything Joe Rogan presents himself as in his show. I think it’s entirely reasonable for Spotify employees to want a catalog without what they think of as transphobic material. But it seems completely incompatible with hosting Joe Rogan’s show. I would presume that the contract gives Spotify no editorial control over the content. This is going to be interesting.

dx87 6y ago
Yeah, I don't know how it's going to work. He's said previously on his show that he only signed the deal with Spotify because they were going to be hands off and not control who he could talk to, including Alex Jones. As soon as his past episodes were uploaded to Spotify, it was clear that someone was mislead/lied to. Some episodes weren't uploaded to Spotify, like Alex Jones and one of his friends who's a flat earther, but also some comedians that got cancelled by twitter mobs.
prepend 6y ago
Rogan has frequently stated that Spotify places no editorial restrictions on his episodes so it will be interesting to see what happens if Spotify chooses to remove some episodes based on content. That being said, I wish they would provide more episodes of the transphobic content. The single episode cited with the author of the book about trans male teens I don’t think is transphobic. I’ve listened to the episode and don’t understand the complaints. The author researched the topic and interviews many subjects and presents data. That’s discussion and research, not transphobia. I think the challenge I have in these topics is that we’re in an age where there are lots of people with voices, and there are complaints about everything. It’s hard to filter out unreasonable complaints and determine what’s important. This is balanced against genuinely needing to protect and empower vulnerable populations where there are people advocating and perpetuating violence against vulnerable populations. But there needs to be some “evidence bundle protocol” where we can collect all the stuff that supports claims to help people accept or reject.

asquabventured 6y ago

Identity politics will destroy our country. Whatever happened to freedom of thought? Shameful

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Identity politics will destroy our country The idea of “our country” is, fundamentally, an expression of identity politics. Your disagreement is with other’s choice of primary identity, not with “identity politics” generally.
- asquabventured 6y ago
  Wrong my issue is with the recent liberal trend that a humans race, creed, sexual orientation, religious preference, outward appearance, etc are an individuals defining characteristic. And if you don't conform to the bucket they want to place you based on that identity they have created for you that you will be cancelled. It's extremely polarizing and destabilizing to society.
  - nl 6y ago
    You'd have a point if the president wasn't trying to cancel kneeling NFL players. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/sport/amp/american-football/44910040 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/sport/amp/american-...
  - toiletfuneral 6y ago
    This is fever swamp boomer shit, go outdoors and stop listening to Fox
  - 3131s 6y ago
    You are missing the point.
  - 4ggr0 6y ago
    These things are literally things which define you as a person, though. Of course there's more, but what makes you think that these things don't define a person? I also don't get the "You have to fit in a bucket" theory. What's an example you've experienced?

zepto 6y ago

Also noticeable - business insider’s reporting on his recent episode with Tim Kennedy is a total misrepresentation. Edit: The vice piece also misrepresents him. Edit: I’d go further than ‘misrepresent’ - they lied about what he said.

rbecker 6y ago
Want to explain, for those of us not keeping track?
- zepto 6y ago
  Sure - here is one of the claims made by business insider: “Joe Rogan made the inflammatory and false claim in a podcast episode on Friday that Caitlyn Jenner could be transgender as a result of living with the Kardashian women.” This is a false statement, which I would call a lie. Joe Rogan spent 20 minutes talking to Tim Kennedy about how about the difficulty of doing comedy in the environment of political correctness. He illustrated this by talking about a joke he told during a stand up routine. In that joke, he spent the first half talking about how his own masculinity was being taken away piece by piece because he lives with 3 women by a process of continuous attrition. Then he made the joke of suggesting that this might be what happened to Bruce Jenner. This simply isn’t the same as what the reports say. If you believe he was making this as a ‘claim’, you would also have to believe that he was making the same claim about himself. Both statements were made in the explicit context of explaining the challenges of making jokes about socially sensitive issues. It’s more than just a misrepresentation - it’s a lie to say that he claimed Bruce Jenner was turned trans by the Kardashian women. He didn’t make that claim. He used it as an example of a joke which is hard to tell because it’s politically incorrect. It would be fair to say he made a joke that many people see as transphobic.

dx87 6y ago

I guess they're focusing on the JRE podcast because it's so popular, but they already host podcasts that you'd think their "LGBTQAI+/ally" employees would be up in arms about. Just a quick look through the recommended podcasts in the web player, and I see Ben Shapiro's podcast on there, who has much more extreme views on LGBT rights than Joe Rogan does.

dogma1138 6y ago
Rogan’s views aren’t extreme no sexual reassignment for minors and no XY in female sports isn’t an extreme view.
- dx87 6y ago
  Right, I personally don't find it extreme, but the Spotify employees seem to, even though there are already podcasts hosted by people who think LGBT people shouldn't be allowed to get married.
- amanzi 6y ago
  You're right, and what really grates me is how anyone who raises similar opinions/questions is instantly labelled transphobic and told to shut up. The Motherboard/Vice article that is referenced in the article (https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg8jq4/spotify-joe-rogan-transphobic https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg8jq4/spotify-joe-rogan-...) clearly states as fact that Joe Rogan is transphobic, but for anyone willing to listen Rogan's opinions will know that just isn't true.
  - UncleMeat 6y ago
    He wasn't labeled a transphobe for being interested in a discussion of professional sporting rules, transition, and hormones. He was labeled a transphobe for using phrases like "a man in a dress" and carelessly platforming people who use similar phrases. We can observe a lot of people successfully discussing and navigating complex issues like sporting regulations without being called transphobic because they don't resort to nasty phrases like Rogan does.
- 6y ago

lvturner 6y ago

Perhaps I am naive, but for me something simple like: "Warning, the following content may offend some listeners and contain factual inaccuracies. The content presented does not represent the views of blah blah" Would help Certainly, I appreciate Facebook's "Sensitive Content" screen, and wish it was used more widely on content.

linuxftw 6y ago
This warning is implied for all information, all the time.
- krageon 6y ago
  Originally this comment irritated me a little, but to be quite honest I think it is reasonable and desirable to retrain everyone to think this way. If some content is a big problem for you, then you can and should definitely stop consuming it - warning stickers aren't going to help you do that and will never cover the nuance of sensibility you have as a real human being anyway.
  - lvturner 6y ago
    In a world of infinite scroll and autoplay, they are occasionally appreciated, however.
  - linuxftw 6y ago
    The problem people have with my comment is that it undermines the implicit assumption that 'authorities' are inherently trustworthy. Sense of trust, sense of authority, those are very powerful emotional motivators. Challenging those ideas is cause to challenge one's self, and that's uncomfortable for many people.

emmelaich 6y ago

Sort of relevant. An Australian Press Council adjudication against "The Australian" newspaper: https://www.presscouncil.org.au/document-search/adj-1783/ https://www.presscouncil.org.au/document-search/adj-1783/ > The publication said the word “epidemic” is appropriate when reporting the exponential increases in those attending gender clinics and the term “social contagion” is an accepted term in social science and was taken from areas such as anorexia and suicide attempts, and where its relevance to adolescents, attitudes and behaviors is widely documented Adjudication: > However, the Council considers there is public interest in vigorous public debate particularly when it concerns submissions made to a parliamentary inquiry. The Council considers that to the extent there was offence and distress it was justified in the public interest.

CivBase 6y ago

Hosting content should not be treated the same supporting it. Plain and simple. A host should have the right to curate the (legal) content they host according to whatever rules they want, but simply hosting it alone should not be treated as tacit endorcement. Otherwise, discenting voices will be left without a platform.

throwaway13337 6y ago
Curation is opinion. Mostly, that opinion is that you should really be mad about something because that's what gets the engagement numbers to go up. That's what they choose to show you. Media platforms are shaping us stronger than anything else. Allowing them to hold a status as unbiased when obviously not causes damage. JRE should be able to be hosted but that's not because Spotify (or Facebook or twitter) should hold a special protected status.
wp381640 6y ago
They're not just hosting it - they bought it for $100 million
- CivBase 6y ago
  That's a good point. That effectively makes Spotify a publisher rather than a platform. I'm getting sick of companies trying to straddle the line between the two. Even if Spotify wasn't effectively publishing the Joe Rogan Experience, I do think Spotify's employees have grounds to complain. Spotify has not built themselves as an open platform for free thought - they have built themselves as a curated music streaming service. Employees who do not want to support an open platform for free thought could be justifiably upset. I'm just sick of open platforms in general being expected by external forces to curate their content like a publisher.
  - s__s 6y ago
    > they have built themselves as a curated music streaming service Not really. The expectation is that as a paying customer you’ll have access to the music you’re interested in. Their shtick has never been curation.

spodek 6y ago

Do I misunderstand their motives or should we remove Huckleberry Finn and Mein Kampf from libraries and school curricula too?

graeme 6y ago

This is rather funny, because all the incentives are backwards. Joe Rogan used to be available on rss, and anyone could listen in any podcast player. Now Spotify bought him out, limiting his reach and making him only available on spotify. If the employees succeed, Rogan will revert to rss and become....more widely available. I am deeply opposed to Spotify’s efforts to close off the podcast ecosystem, so I hope the employees succeed. This does highlight a change in what Spotify is trying to do. They’re attempting to become a podcast publisher, rather than an app with podcasts available. With music they’re merely a conduit for the most part. (Not sure if Rogan has left rss yet, but this wouldn’t change the argument. He’s due to if he hasn’t)

whoisjuan 6y ago
But RSS distribution is hard to monetize. That's why a big part of the JRE podcast business model was uploading the videos to YouTube and also create all the highlights and such. But in YouTube they got several videos demonetized, so there's really no escape. This is the distribution problem. If you don't have distribution and rely on others for that you have to play by their rules even if they are ridiculous or broken. I think that the canonical solution for Spotify would be to not run ads on the "controversial" episodes. Either way it doesn't affect JR since his contract seems to be lump sums of money for keep creating the content.
- manquer 6y ago
  Being on Spotify and being exclusively on Spotify is not the same. Given his reach he can make good money doing commericals within the podcast itself and do perhaps commerical free deal with Spotify. Distribution is not that hard, discovery is hard . Monetization is hard. Distribution is fairly easy today , it is not like 80s or 90s where distribution meant cassette and cd in every retailer. In 2000s the tech was possible but not cheap enough for a independent producer. Today the tech is accessible too.
  - whoisjuan 6y ago
    > Distribution is not that hard, discovery is hard I think you and I have different definitions of distribution. I'm not talking about being able to "distribute" your content per se. I'm talking about getting enough reach which is a way harder problem. Just because you can upload videos to YouTube doesn't mean that you will automatically get traffic. Distribution in this context is not only the podcast being able to have content in x or y platform, but rather having prime time treatment so it reaches more audiences.

S_A_P 6y ago

Joe is a centrist in leftist clothing. I honestly think this is a good thing. I dont 100% agree with his point of view but we need to figure out how to compromise or just expect a red vs blue civil war. I don’t want this at all. I don’t want to shut down anyone that has a different point of view from me either. Why are we so intent on being right and not compromising??

S_A_P 6y ago
What specifically is middle of the road Joe Rogan saying that is “anti transgender”? Serious question.
- sp332 6y ago
  "They have this agenda," he said, "and this agenda is very ideologically driven that anyone who even thinks they might be trans should be trans, are trans, and the more trans people the better. The more kids that transition the better." https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a33391944/joe-rogan-abigail-shrier-interview-transphobia/ https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a33391944/joe-rogan... but you can probably find other sources, it's a direct quote.
  - pfarnsworth 6y ago
    What about that statement is anti-transgender? If anything it sounds like he is anti-transgender-extreme-activist. You can put me in that camp as well, I despise those that want to politicize innocent people for their own power. And I fully support transgender rights, my high school friend's son in transgender from age 5 so I've seen this first hand especially during the most formative years.
  - ALittleLight 6y ago
    That might be right or wrong, but I don't see how it's transphobic. If I said Catholic people have an ideological agenda to make more people Catholic, they want to make their kids Catholic, they want to make your kids Catholic, they want to make YOU Catholic - that might be right or wrong, depending on the Catholics, but I don't see how saying it would demonstrate a prejudice against Catholics.

alphachloride 6y ago

What constitutes transphobic exactly? Is it in the eye of the beholder, like porn: you'll know it when you see it?

gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
It’s fundamentally postmodern: impact matters, not intent. Meaning: if someone’s triggered and distressed by anything and you trigger them, you’re in the wrong, not them.
- dolguldur 6y ago
  I never thought about it like this but this covers surprisingly much of what's currently happening.
  - gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
    If you're interested in understanding how postmodernism has been subverting meaning, motivating chaos, and how it's married to activism watch this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xILBpDOqD-A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xILBpDOqD-A It does a good job summarizing key ideas from Derrida, et. al. At the end of the day, people are frantically grasping for power by spreading doubt into all modes of communication, institutions, cultural ideas, etc.
- johnisgood 6y ago
  Some people need some stoicism in their life for sure.
- tasuki 6y ago
  I am distressed by people thinking that's a reasonable point of view.
sp332 6y ago
He had Abigail Shrier as a guest to promote her book called Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, so that's kind of a bright line?

hervature 6y ago

I am posting this because there seems to be a large misunderstanding about the Alex Jones episodes being "removed" by Spotify. I am also going to give you a warning. I am going to post a link to Infowars, yes, that Infowars. It is one of the few sources that actually attempts to clarify the story behind the "removed" episodes. If you are a reasonable person, you would take this opportunity to reevaluate the sources you listen to that have been pandering to their readers about how controversial Joe Rogan is and question why these sources weren't interested in actually getting to the bottom of the removed episodes instead of causing sensationalism. Here it is, according to Alex Jones [1], the reason why certain Joe Rogan episodes were removed from Spotify is because Joe Rogan gets to keep hosting his favorite 100 episodes on Youtube. A shrewd business decision as Spotify gets time to decide how to handle the Alex Jones episodes and Joe gets to have his most profit making episodes still on Youtube. Now, ask yourself, why is it that this news is coming from such a controversial figure? You may call him a racist, bigot, transphobe, xenophobe, or whatever. But you can't deny that the media failing to actually report on the story and the real story coming from Alex Jones just adds credibility to all his other views. Be it Sandy Hook, George Soros, or psychic vampirism. [1] - https://www.infowars.com/alex-jones-spotify-is-not-censoring-joe-rogan/ https://www.infowars.com/alex-jones-spotify-is-not-censoring...

pseudalopex 6y ago
Why would Rogan tell Jones instead of his fans?
- hervature 6y ago
  That's a good question. Contractual obligations with Spotify? I've been pondering this for a while. It does seem somewhat plausible because some of the episodes removed weren't controversial. Rogan also hasn't commented on this. It's also unclear whether he would deny it even if it was false. I've also been wondering why would Alex Jones lie about this? If he was going to create a narrative, I would expect it to have some crazy "Democrat elite controlling the media" bend to it.
  - 6y ago

not_a_moth 6y ago

As a long time listener I will go to bat for Joe's show, he is a loving, rational, open person, and he simply does not platform hateful people or not challenge unjust statements. Some media, political actors, and certain people who don't listen to his show want to spin him as a hate speech alt-righter, especially now on this election year since he platforms Bernie and Tulsi but is against Biden. Find the amount of baseless slander against him disturbing.

jjj123 6y ago
I’ve only listened to a few of Joe’s interviews but I really disagree that he pushes back often at all. He kind of seems like a golden retriever, eager to agree and please and genuinely non judgemental about the majority of his guests’ opinions. It makes for great conversations, and also a great platform for shitty people.
- StillBored 6y ago
  I think he pushes back against a fair number of things. But he treats his guests with respect, and won't push peoples buttons (for example, look at some of the vegan guests/etc). So he frequently lets things slide, and if you listen, you can frequently hear it, just like you can tell when your friends are doing the "sure, lets change the topic now" thing around you to avoid conflict. The veggie thing is probably one of those areas that at some point someone will show up and be like, its possible to body build, live a healthy life without your tst supplements and eating raw deer. And he will end up having a reasoned conversation with them. Maybe, he has a lot of fairly unscientific beliefs around nutrition AFAIK. BTW: Not sure I really agree with either of you, but there are is some very downvote heavy people in this topic, and I've been upvoting a lot of things I think have been unfairly downvoted for expressing fairly reasoned opinions. So have an upvote.. :)
StillBored 6y ago
Yah, people on both sides condemn him because he will have Alex Jones on his show one week and then Bernie the next, two people about as far from each other as possible. He reminds me a bit of Charlie Rose's ability to just talk to people on both sides of the political spectrum. And do it without creating a lot of drama. And like Charlie Rose, he will call people's BS (and let them call his), but then move on before it gets heated. So everyone can find something to hate about him if they try for 1/2 a second, but in reality I think those people are the problem, which is actually one of ongoing central themes he carries, when he talks about how he doesn't read the comments on his episodes/etc anymore. Personally, I believe there is a place for the social shunning (and alex jones might be one of them), but I'm also of the opinion its being wielded for petty/trivial things by people who are only interested in censoring people they don't agree with. This article being one of them. The guy literally has something like 3k+ hours of conversations online, and they find a couple sentences they find challenges their world and they are trying to deplatform him. I'm actually a fairly large supporter of "you can do anything you want in your bedroom" which extends to marrying anyone you please. But I don't really need gay pride flags, and lunch and learns about it at work. The people trying to shout him down are doing more to harm their cause IMHO than JRE ever could.

anonu 6y ago

Cancel culture at it's best. What happened to freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, freedom to choose. If Spotify were smart they wouldn't censor any of the podcasts. Instead they would put a Twitter like message warning the user... As a way to satisfy the cancel culture crowd. I don't care about Joe or his views. But I do care about people having choice and freedom

tmpz22 6y ago
I don’t know if complete deregulation is the answer, there are some pretty shitty podcasts out there pushing QAnon, nazi, and just plain fake, information which vulnerable groups latch onto and amplify to the extent that society is severely impacted. I’m in favor of a hybrid approach where extreme hate content is tracked, called out, and in extreme cases deplatformed. The Joe Rogan platform is not at that point in my view, it’s merely gathering the lowest common denominator of podcast viewers which unfortunately really likes conspiracy content and content whose only merit is to push against academia and domain matter experts.
threeseed 6y ago
Spotify has the right to choose what is on their platform. Spotify employees have the right to voice their concerns if the company they work for is alienating them. But I guess that's not the kind of freedom you are interested in.
- xupybd 6y ago
  They have every right but they have an opportunity to avoid cancel culture and cash in on the most popular pod cast ever produced. Joe Rogan is popular with the masses, very popular. This tells me his views are probably mainstream. Mainstream enough to make a lot of money out of without worrying about backlash.
- liability 6y ago
  > But I guess that's not the kind of freedom you are interested in. I do not see a suggestion by anonu that the people they disagree with should be deprived of their freedom. To criticize people for saying something is not the same as saying they shouldn't have the right to say it. That would only be the case if somebody had an absolutely authoritarian mindset. It unnerves me how quick some are to conflate these positions, as though they view the world through an authoritarian lens and assume others must as well. "People shouldn't say mean things" and "People shouldn't have the right to say mean things" are not equivalent statements unless you are an authoritarian.

Mathnerd314 6y ago

"Vice reported", "Vice said"... link the original article: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg8jq4/spotify-joe-rogan-transphobic https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg8jq4/spotify-joe-rogan-...

fareesh 6y ago

If you are a Muslim or Christian working at Spotify and Rogan hosts Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins or (Hypothetically) Christopher Hitchens, who come on the show and proceed to lambast the beliefs held by people of these religions, is Spotify expected to seriously entertain this protest and take down the episodes? Frankly I see zero difference between this and what is happening here. It is a protest against blasphemy. If this is truly not a religious topic but a scientific one, then what is the harm in a qualified person coming on the show and presenting some facts and drawing conclusions? Why not offer to go on the show, bring these people back on and challenge their position? Rebut all of the points and present the flaws and reasons why that conclusion is incorrect. That is part of the scientific method. Or has western society reached a stage where the goal is to deplatform the positions that don't align with one's own, instead of debating them and prevailing through argument? Why is it that so often the first course of action is to censor and deplatform? There seems to be far too much dogma in the discourse. Furthermore small fringe groups are claiming to speak on behalf of their entire identity group. This too is extremely bigoted. Not everyone in the same identity group believes the same things.

slowhadoken 6y ago

Some argue this issue is about free speech, others say it’s just business. I believe in free speech so if Joe gets pulled down then I’m canceling my subscription.

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trophycase 6y ago

Get over yourselves. Jesus. You work for a giant corporation anyway let's not pretend like you have some magical moral high ground.

StringyBob 6y ago

As a Spotify premium subscriber, I don’t particularly like that a chunk of my subscription is going to their ‘exclusive podcasts’, while musicians I listen to are getting minimal payouts. I’d be much more comfortable with my subscription being split amongst the things I choose to listen to.

ALittleLight 6y ago

There's a quote in the Vice article that this seems to be based on discussing a recent guest Shrier who wrote a book against transgender youth. "She also described wanting to transition as a "contagion" with the potential to infect other children, an entirely scientifically baseless idea, Men's Health noted." The idea that transgender identification is, in part, a social contagion, is the subject of academic research. [1] It seems odd and inappropriate to me that Vice, and consequently Business Insider, cite "Men's Health" magazine as the definitive source on what is or isn't scientific and ignore actual academic research on the topic. It's also dishonest that they phrased it to elide the "social" part of the phrase, to make it seem as if the guest were claiming trans identification is communicated as a disease is. Articles like this are something of a depressing reminder that journalists are basically bloggers who quickly bang out a story about current events for their audience. I think, ideally, journalists would try a bit harder to be fair and impartial. 1 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6095578/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6095578/

4ggr0 6y ago
This reminds me of people back in the day saying that homosexuality is a "disease" which is being spread by homosexuality. I'm not a scientist, but isn't it just the fact of being educated that such exist? If I don't know about transgenderism, or I know about it but people view it as a negative thing, I would never get the idea of being it myself, right? I just live my whole life with a strange feeling of not really knowing who I am. If, on the other hand, I know about it and the culture is accepting of it, I can finally know who I am because I feel like I found myself. I really doubt that people start hormone-therapy just because they heard about transgenderism and were somehow brainwashed into thinking that they are trans as well...It actually sounds like a disgusting theory to me, could come from a certain german group in the 1930's. If I was born 100 years prior, I probably never would've known that I have ADHD or am Bi-Sexual. Now with the internet all the information is available to me and I suddenly get to know myself. I doubt that the internet or the culture made me bi or ADHD. I just found out thanks to those things :) People back in the day were labeled as dumb people because they couldn't read, now we know that there's a thing called dyslexia. Anyways, sorry for going on a tangent, just what I thought when reading this discussion.

dmingod666 6y ago

In most places and industries other than IT employees do their work and get paid. IT is the only industry where they seem like they are activists first and then employees later. I doubt they would be able to do this sort of a thing in for example an insurance company or a petroleum company. I probably think its a mix of scarcity of talent and the political leaning of silicon valley. Either ways, looks like people hired to do something else are calling the shots and people that are supposed to make decisions are getting walked all over. Any other industry would put these activists in place and be told to focus on doing work or quit and get into politics.

sneak 6y ago

Spotify also have up a ton of gangsta rap about premeditated murder and physical abuse of women. We don't need more censorship. If you try to cancel publishing platforms like facebook or spotify for the content they host, the end result of success there means that you won't be able to listen to a single song with a swear word or sex/drug references it in, as everything is now cloud based. I hope that doesn’t happen. I don’t like Dr Dre or Biggie as human beings who make bad moral choices, but I enjoy their music that describes violent and abhorrent acts.

iconjack 6y ago

I wonder if any of these concerned employees have ever listened to the rap songs Spotify so proudly hosts and promotes.

specialist 6y ago

FWIW, highest recommendation for Philosophy Tube and ContraPoints. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_Tube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_Tube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ContraPoints https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ContraPoints If you want to learn about something, go to the source. I'm now +50/yo (SWM) and have had out LGBTQ friends, family, schoolmates, coworkers most of my life. One of my cousins did gender reassignment 30 years ago. On one hand I can't believe we're still talking about this stuff. On the other, I felt like I needed to understand what people are arguing about today. (Recommendations please.) For instance, to better accommodate some of my besties, I've been actively practicing using singular they pronouns in my every day speech. Old dog, new tricks. Fortunately, they're patient with me. I keep thinking about something Marilyn Manson said in the aftermath of Columbine. The reactionaries were blaming angry music and video games. (Of course.) Michael Moore asked Manson what he'd say to the kids. Manson replied that he wouldn't say anything, that he'd just listen. I agree. So whenever one of these social, cultural food fights flares up, I really don't give two shits what commentators think. I already know what the peanut gallery thinks. I can't not know. Rather, I just want to hear from the people affected.

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moneytide1 6y ago
The recent Rogan episode was a virtual call, and the guest at one point said "it is not good that this is what we are spending time talking about". Then they proceeded to talk about it for a few more minutes before I turned it off and did something else. They say many words with interesting variations and perspectives - they make time for it on a weekly broadcast program for a few hundred thousand people who also talk about it. "Stop talking about it." -Morgan Freeman (when asked on 60 Minutes about something else thought not to be discussed in polite company) But if it should be discussed then we should make time for it. Sex (similar to opioid brain response because evolution causes us to associate reproduction with pleasure) is in the background of everyone's adult interactions by default. You introduce your friends to each other and association allows you to have a "vote" in the person that would be born in potentially 9 months from that evening of acquaintance (1-2 years realistically, since there is the expectation of courting around shared village getting to know each others social circle). Therefore "sex" was discussed just by saying "Hello Sally, meet my friend Harry." Without saying anything about sex. Or variations on it. Or money paid for it. Or ways. Crude jokes are rude. An expletive every 10 words is rude. Podcast discussed that collapsing empires (post Nero Roman centuries) experienced similar fetish advertisement and public displays, suggestions or anything remotely topical in debates and decisions among elected officials and lawmakers. As a group of friends, in the past, you may have discussed the amount of doe in the clearing next to your house, and by your friends knowledge of a herd with mature bucks routinely grazing near their own prairie - food could then be set out (Breadcrumb Trail) to introduce herds and increase the herd mass over a few seasons. There is a sweet spot, and some states have different kill limits set by using tax revenue to curate&monitor local herds (that migrate across county lines), but you are essentially "pruning" a population (overfishing takes much longer to return from than if we allow the mass to hover at an ideal size to continue to farm from. See Joel Salatin diaper/teenage/nursing home grass metaphor to describe sigmoid curve growth rate of "solar collector" for optimal grazing routine[1]). Ideal to lure the dense, seasoned buck that has fathered many children using a female call away from where you know a herd could be so that the productive mass never sees the kill and can feel safe enough around the acreage to continue and remain "fenced" by comfort. They will nibble on commercial farmland perimeter and thus there are higher kill limits in states with lots of agriculture and intentional "buffer" land for herds to graze (some farm plots are set aside and meant as feed for wild venison source). Here on HN about a year ago there was a journal suggesting a link to several decades of birth control in the sewage of cities running into natural water drainage and increasingly feminized fish populations (therefore reduced numbers). Regardless of the sewage runoff, birth control has been available to several generations of mothers. This means decades of manually overriding natural hormone regimen to drastically reduce fertility "temporarily" (on purpose for sex without "consequence") until the Pill's effect "wears off". Some mothers had their children before trying "the Pill" - maybe there are entire generations of "pure" mothers who never used birth control. Could blood tests verify this? If Chinese one child per family era preferred male fetus, then there are fewer fertile Chinese females now. If there are fewer potent American males (self castration to change gender), then that means there is a surplus of American females without fertile male mate. [1] https://youtu.be/O7KEHzUl0tg https://youtu.be/O7KEHzUl0tg

mikedilger 6y ago

Joe Rogan makes an apology and a retraction: https://www.instagram.com/p/CFSYnUFA8Fb/?igshid=z7u5pv3sjemu https://www.instagram.com/p/CFSYnUFA8Fb/?igshid=z7u5pv3sjemu Given the vast amount of conversations he records and releases, it doesn't seem suprising in the least that he would make a mistake here and there.