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Whom does Spotify try to aquisice here? Their users? Their content creators? Or rather their staff? All 3 groups could be possible reasons. But given how litt

Whom does Spotify try to aquisice here? Their users? Their content creators? Or rather their staff? All 3 groups could be possible reasons. But given how little median content creators matter to the organization, users and staff are more likely. But if it were the users, then why buy Joe Rogan's users at all? Especially at a record braking price? This makes me believe it's more likely staff. If that is the case one has to wonder: is this generally the sad mental state of tech workers? Or is it rather a few employees who, emboldened by cancel-culture, will toss their political agenda around the office while other employees, intimidated by cancel-culture, shy away from calling out the obvious BS?

nickysielicki 5y ago
It's been reported in the past that it is staff. Spotify has 5,000+ employees -- I wouldn't assume for a second that it's the tech workers doing this, I suspect it's probably HR and marketing and so on. It's a big bureaucratic organization. I like to think if I was at Spotify, and I saw people holding the company hostage like this -- threatening to quit (or whatever) if they don't get their way -- that I would stand up and threaten to do the same if they do get their way. If the only way to remove the ability of these people to make threats is to create a lose-lose situation for your employer, then you have a responsibility to do that. If enough companies see this happen and are forced to navigate a needless lose-lose situation, maybe we'll see companies take a harder position against advocacy and activism and politics in the workplace. If all else is equal, hopefully they'll be forced to take the position that they would have taken if nobody threatened anything; they'll fall back to their actual principles.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  I'm curious where the line is for you. Is there any legal content where it is permissible that Spotify doesn't want to host it?
  - nickysielicki 5y ago
    Definitely, but Joe Rogan is nowhere near that line. I don't have a problem with the platform restricting content. I have a problem with the behavior of the employees reaching outside of their role to forward their political goals. If your job is to curate content, and you disagree with the content of JRE, you would have stopped the deal from happening in the first place.
    - gizmo385 5y ago
      Many employees at Spotify did object to signing Joe Rogan.
    - qqqwerty 5y ago
      > employees reaching outside of their role to forward their political goals The vast majority of executives in the corporate world are conservative, and in addition to personally supporting conservative movements, they frequently direct company resources towards furthering right leaning agendas. Is it really that offensive that a handful of employees are at a handful of tech companies are trying to steer the ship in the other direction? Are you similarly offended when oil companies lobby the government to further the oil industries interests? Are you offended when corporations successfully push congress to pass tax breaks largely targeted at corporations and the rich?
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - imgabe 5y ago
    I think it's pretty clear that Spotify wants to host it, seeing as they paid $100 million for the right to do so. It seems some employees, whom Spotify did not entrust with the decision to host this content or not, are mad about it and are attempting a hostile takeover of their company to run it according to their own politics instead of how the owners and managers have decided to do.
- snicksnak 5y ago
  always pay attention who you hire, especially in HR. Woke and activist HR hires woke and activist people, woke and activist people will cause you trouble and can wreck your whole ship. This is true for every industry but especially for media, just look what happened to the once so prestigious news outlets, all taken hostage.
  - seriousquestion 5y ago
    Smart companies have already been filtering them out. See Coinbase, who literally paid them to leave.
    - geofft 5y ago
      Does this tend to improve the company's financial performance, or is this simply worth doing if you have certain political goals for your company that outweigh financial results? i.e., is this "smart companies" as in those with good financial ideas or "smart companies" as in those who want to build a non-woke world for the next generation? It seems like most SJW-converged companies have been doing just fine as companies, otherwise the invisible hand of the market would have put a stop to this long ago.
      - hanselot 5y ago
        Blizzard being the shining paragon in that regard?
  - redmeatforchina 5y ago
    The ironic part is that even the most liberal anti-republican types are made miserable by woke employees. I worked at a tech company that went through the exact process you described. Liberal Democrat types used to keep politics out of the workplace for the most part. Then they started hiring woke brainwashed college students who aligned with them ideologically but not procedural. Now instead of the daily chat at the water cooler, we have employees screaming at meetings about the latest outrage, taking days off because something happened in the news, and crying when being woke doesn't help their performance reviews. Everybody is miserable and managers are fleeing.
- bootwoot 5y ago
  Is there a source for this? Seems way more likely to be monetarily pushed by either investors or advertisers (as other poster said) or at least pre-emptively done to appease those groups.
  - nickysielicki 5y ago
    Source: https://www.vice.com/en/article/xg8jq4/spotify-joe-rogan-transphobic https://www.vice.com/en/article/xg8jq4/spotify-joe-rogan-tra... > One of the submitted questions was "Many LGBTQAI+/ally Spotifiers feel unwelcome and alienated because of leadership's response in JRE conversations. What is your message to those employees?" Another was “Why has Spotify chosen to ignore Spectrum ERG's guidance about transphobic content in the JRE catalog?,” referring to a group of Spotify workers who focus on related issues. > At the meeting, Ek also told employees not to leak to the media, noting "If we can't have open, confidential debates, we will have to move those discussions to closed doors."
    - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
      Although it should be noted that the main episode at issue in that controversy, with Abigail Shrier, wasn't one of the ones removed in this recent wave and is still on Spotify.
    - temp667 5y ago
      What is Spectrum ERG? Most corps do follow guidance from legal / HR etc to a degree - it's weird if that was being ignored.
      - sethhochberg 5y ago
        "ERG" in this context is probably an Employee Resource Group - a pretty common construct at larger organizations. Think of them as a formal way for employees with some kind of shared set of goals or concerns to organize and support each other, usually completely distinct from their actual job function. ERGs often have some kind of liaison from HR, especially since they are often associated with diversity programs. But the ERG itself is usually just advisory if they're consulted on something the company is doing.
- ljm 5y ago
  I heard second hand that the folks working at Spotify were incredibly unhappy about this Joe Rogan deal, and one of the reasons for that was because leadership steamrolled over any concerns they had. And there were many. I don't really know who this guy is or why you'd spend 100 million on him to secure a deal. But he's walking away with that money and Spotify is left with the infighting. They fucked themselves over with that absurd investment.
  - imgabe 5y ago
    Why do their concerns matter? I thought private businesses were free to choose to host or not host any content they want, without any regard to anything or anyone? If employees don't like it, they can quit. Presumably, Spotify put some executive in charge of doing the Rogan deal, the board approved it, and that should be that. Donna from Accounting doesn't get a say. If you’re stocking the shelves at the grocery store management doesn’t care that you think they should only sell Wheaties and not Frosted Flakes. It’s not your decision to make.
  - bgorman 5y ago
    It is not an absurd investment, Spotify is a commodity technology and taking away Joe Rogan podcast from their biggest competitor (Apple) provides much needed differentiation. Joe Rogan's podcast was the number one podcast on Apple Podcasts. Now it isn't available at all.
    - ljm 5y ago
      So you buy out Apple's number 1 podcast...and then Apple has another number 1 podcast. And you're sitting with a lame duck, as is evidenced by TFA. Is Spotify going to blow another 100 mil on that one and hope for the best? They messed up by betting large on a celebrity and ignoring the fact that Joe Rogan wasn't a cultural fit.
      - aleister_777 5y ago
        > They messed up by betting large on a celebrity and ignoring the fact that Joe Rogan wasn't a cultural fit. He's a cultural fit for x hundreds of millions. You may not fall into that demographic, but there's no discounting that other cultures exist outside of your own.
- warent 5y ago
  Politics are going to exist in the workplace no matter what because workplaces are made of humans. Advocacy and activism are a bad thing?
  - imgabe 5y ago
    When they are stupid, yes.
thekashifmalik 5y ago
> Or is it rather a few employees who, emboldened by cancel-culture, will toss their political agenda around the office while other employees, intimidated by cancel-culture, shy away from calling out the obvious BS? This is it. The intimidation is real; look at what happened to James Damore.
- gizmo385 5y ago
  What is your interpretation of what happened to James Damore? I would guess you and I have different opinions on what exactly took place, but I'm not sure either of us can presume that our opinions on those situations reflect the ground truth of what actually happened.
  - Manuel_D 5y ago
    My interpretation was that Damore said that forcing 50/50 outcomes is discrimination, and more broadly the claim that all gender disparities are entirely caused by bias is not correct. He laid out specific discriminatory policies (representation OKRs, coaching candidates for interviews but only if they belong to underrepresented demographics) and asked the company to stop. The depiction of the memo in the media was that he said women weren't as intelligent as men. Even though he explicitly called out that this is not what he was saying, he referred only to innate factors influencing preferences not intelligence.
readflaggedcomm 5y ago
Investors and especially advertisers may also pressure to remove content.
Traster 5y ago
Spotify bought Rogan because they want his average listener, it's cheaper for them to stream a podcast than to pay royalties on a song. They also don't want to have to answer questions about why a podcaster they (quasi) employ is doing X controversial thing. So that's what they do, they buy him and drop the controversial bits. It's not really that hard to understand is it?
- anakaine 5y ago
  Until you remember that his most popular episodes, and those that keep people coming back, are some of the most controversial. Talking about drugs, legalisation, smoking blunts with celebrities, hunting, and frankly being an openly right wing fanatic with some pretty intolerant world views at times are why he has a big audience. Securing both celebrity, tackling those taboo topics, and being a reasonably good host of conversation propelled him. Taking away the controversy puts him back in the group with nearly every other celebrity with a podcast.
  - Traster 5y ago
    They're not removing 99% of that stuff though, they're taking away only the most extreme bits, and maybe that'll get worse and worse over time, but frankly I think that the business model means he's screwed anyway. Signing for spotify naturally puts him outside of the mainstream conversation (which isn't paywalled) so his cultural relevance is going to slide, erroding his negotiating position. In tandem with that is Spotify's push into podcasts work he'll be just 1 voice amongst many that spotify now has sway over, if it doesn't work Spotify won't care to keep Rogan around since they'll drop that aspect of the business model. Either was, Rogan's negotiating position peaked the day of the deal he signed, and he's probably aware of that. Short of someone like Apple waking up and deciding to do content, no one will offer Rogan that deal again.
sn_master 5y ago
> Whom does Spotify try to aquisice here? YouTube always claims they're demonetizing videos for their advertisers. i.e companies threatening to either boycott advertising on the platform entirely, or ones who don't their products appear in videos with certain content. Maybe Spotify is doing it for the same reason?
- luckylion 5y ago
  According to this [1] Spotify makes 91% of their revenue and nearly 100% of their profits based on premium membership, not ads. I find it unlikely that they're messing with their users' interests to make advertisers happy that make up a rounding error in the profits. [1] https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/120314/spotify-makes-internet-music-make-money.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/120314/spoti...
  - sn_master 5y ago
    Interesting. Then perhaps its higher ups in Spotify who might be afraid of getting accused of hosting content that isn't in favor with the MSM and ruling regime in the US?
  - alkonaut 5y ago
    I (N=1) would seriously consider cancelling my Spotify subscription if Spotify kept pushing Alex Jones. It's not that far fetched.
    - sn_master 5y ago
      What do you mean by "pushing"? Recommending him in your home page, with no option to disable the said recommendations? Or just hosting him at all on their platform? Do you have the same opinion about YouTube, which has every political spectrum and its polar opposite on the same platform?
      - alkonaut 5y ago
        I mean “sponsoring” or “enabling” to a level beyond just existing in their catalog does. I think it’s great that YouTube, Facebook, Twitter etc also ban Alex Jones yes. I see the risk of tech platforms acting as giant censors to be the smaller problem here.
cercatrova 5y ago
Nitpicking but it's "who" not "whom". One tries to acquiesce someone, so "who" is used as it's the direct object, not the indirect object.
- hkt 5y ago
  Spotify acquiesces to a pressure group of some kind, not the other way around. If we are nitpicking..
- minitech 5y ago
  - “whom” is for all objects, no direct/indirect distinction - I’ve never heard “acquiesce” used with a direct object and dictionaries don’t seem to have either - but they said “aquisice” anyway so who knows So yeah, it’s needlessly flowery and incorrect (name a more iconic duo), but the “whom” isn’t this time (although “who” would also be good).
deleted 5y ago
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bigmattystyles 5y ago
There's a another group - ephemeral online mobs - People not involved with the content at hand in any way, shape or form contribute to a reactionary admonition and I'm sure businesses just want to avoid the controversy altogether. I don't know about Rogan for instance, but Hulu removed 4 episodes of sunny because of racist caricatures. They certainly were racist but the joke was on the characters using the caricatures. It's a silly example but nuance be damned. I don't think Spotify thinks its censoring anything, they just don't want trouble.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  The Sunny in Philadelphia thing makes no sense at all. Supposedly, Tina Fey pre-emptively asked to remove some of her own 30 rock episodes and that caused others to need to look like they’re doing something lest they be caught up in a PR storm. Makes zero sense in the context of comedies using it as the butt of jokes though.
  - reducesuffering 5y ago
    That was the canary in the coal mine for me that activist mob outrage is getting out of hand. Another case of Gell Mann amnesia. When it’s a topic I’m extremely familiar with, the preemptive removal or outrage doesn’t make any sense. Those episodes literally had a discussion about the problems of blackface, and the point of the show is that the characters are terrible people and that’s why the characters did it.[0] Like you said, all nuance is lost in proactively defending against the online activist mob and we lose good discussion in the process. [0] https://youtu.be/-0L_oJMhcs0 https://youtu.be/-0L_oJMhcs0
softwaredoug 5y ago
This feels like a lot of speculation without evidence. According to the article, nobody knows what's happening and why.
- deleted 5y ago
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fareesh 5y ago
Society in the west seems to not know how to deal with this new variety of bullying. By cloaking their bullying in the veil of righteousness, bullies are able to engage in self-aggrandisement to satisfy the tyrannical need to shape the world in the image that they desire, without engaging in the civilized discourse and debate that would preclude such decision making. The justification thrown around is that the cause is righteous and therefore the ends justify the means, which is pretty much the same justification that has been used by every tyrant in the past. Standing up to them comes at a high cost, but when has it ever been easy. Perhaps the rest of society has too much to lose now.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  >Society in the west seems to not know how to deal with this new variety of bullying Society in the West in contrast to... what exactly? Are you under the impression non-Western societies don't shape culture based on norms and expectations about what's proper or right? How is Spotify deleting episodes from their own platform tyranny? Jesus people have become so dramatic and whiny. Here's a crazy idea, if you don't want your episodes deleted don't sell rights to your intellectual property for 100 million bucks to another party
  - ziftface 5y ago
    Comments like the one you replied to honestly seem kind of silly. The "problem" you're describing is as old as time, it's not some new phenomenon the west bumped into.
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      People across the world calling you a fascist / communist, with 30 seconds of effort, to their and your 1,000 closest friends, seems like a pretty new phenomenon.
      - krapp 5y ago
        "your 1,000 closest friends?"
JPKab 5y ago
I worked for a tech company until recently that had allowed a relatively small group of activist employees to trigger HR policies that have been extremely detrimental to the morale and bottom line of the company. Cowardly HR departments who don't recognize that, by and large, the activist employees are mediocre at best, rather than remotely productive employees, has made things worse. Also, companies like Spotify seem to spawn an odd lack of self-awareness amongst many employees about how utterly replaceable they actually are. Spotify is a video and audio streaming service. There isn't anything novel about that anymore, as proved by how rapidly HBO and Disney were able to roll out platforms which do the same thing. Even worse, the HR don't recognize this either. I can personally attest to the fact that the new CEO who was my last straw at my last gig care far more about his personal reputation at his Marin County country club than the bottom line for the shareholders. He acted accordingly, and the board of directors also care far more about their reputations.
- gizmo385 5y ago
  > Cowardly HR departments who don't recognize that, by and large, the activist employees are mediocre at best, rather than remotely productive employees, has made things worse. This feels like you're projecting your opinion of these people and their political beliefs (which it appears you disagree with) onto their entire character and acting as if your opinion of them is the reality of the situation. Are there activist employees that are poor performers? Probably. But it feels more like you're trying to paint an entire subset of employees negatively because you disagree with their political stances.
  - JPKab 5y ago
    I'm simply pointing out that people who are into their actual work, as opposed to people who are into their work environments and cultures, are more productive. People obsess about managing time, but it's really about managing finite mental energy. Activist employees expend mental energy on social causes which don't benefit the bottom line of the company. I'm not saying they shouldn't be activists, I'm just saying they should do it on their own time, not at work and in the workplace. Exactly zero of the engineers at my company who were leading the charge on this stuff were standouts. Average performers at best, mostly sort of QA material and nothing more. I don't have real data, obviously, but my anecdotal, non-scientific survey of friends at Google, Amazon, Netflix, etc has shown a pattern of lower status employees being attracted to these activities. I don't actually disagree with a lot of the goals of the activist employees at my former Boulder-based tech company. I simply disagree with them using the HR department to impose their views and beliefs onto the majority of employees who don't want it, in a way that becomes disruptive and distracting from making money. At the end of the quarter, the assholes in charge who wouldn't shut up about equity are still making hundreds of times what the average employee makes, and will fire anyone if the numbers aren't what they promised in the earnings forecast. The social justice initiatives seem to be designed to turn the rank and file against each other, instead of having them ask if their CEO is really worth 300 software engineers in value to the company.
nbardy 5y ago
> will toss their political agenda around the office while other employees, intimidated by cancel-culture, shy away from calling out the obvious BS This is why it spreads so fast. You have one person who is loud, assertive and aggressive. And most people just want to avoid politics so they nod their heads.
nodesocket 5y ago
Completely agree it's coming from employees and staff who believe their political ideology is the gospel and implementing cancel culture until there is no opposition is their goal. This largely stems from the bubble and lack of diversity in political ideology in the bay area and Europe.
wdr1 5y ago
You forgot a forth group: advertisers.
djohnston 5y ago
At my own company it's very much this. As someone not directly impacted I would take a huge risk arguing against woke bullies for very little reward. Maybe when I'm on my way out I'll feel more comfortable sharing my opinion, until then I keep my mouth shut and cash the check. Write good code sometimes too..
xnx 5y ago
I'm pretty sure I read corporations are supposed to try and act in the interest of their shareholders. The preferences of users, content creators, and staff are all secondary to shareholders.

nickysielicki 5y ago

It's been reported in the past that it is staff. Spotify has 5,000+ employees -- I wouldn't assume for a second that it's the tech workers doing this, I suspect it's probably HR and marketing and so on. It's a big bureaucratic organization. I like to think if I was at Spotify, and I saw people holding the company hostage like this -- threatening to quit (or whatever) if they don't get their way -- that I would stand up and threaten to do the same if they do get their way. If the only way to remove the ability of these people to make threats is to create a lose-lose situation for your employer, then you have a responsibility to do that. If enough companies see this happen and are forced to navigate a needless lose-lose situation, maybe we'll see companies take a harder position against advocacy and activism and politics in the workplace. If all else is equal, hopefully they'll be forced to take the position that they would have taken if nobody threatened anything; they'll fall back to their actual principles.

whimsicalism 5y ago
I'm curious where the line is for you. Is there any legal content where it is permissible that Spotify doesn't want to host it?
- nickysielicki 5y ago
  Definitely, but Joe Rogan is nowhere near that line. I don't have a problem with the platform restricting content. I have a problem with the behavior of the employees reaching outside of their role to forward their political goals. If your job is to curate content, and you disagree with the content of JRE, you would have stopped the deal from happening in the first place.
  - gizmo385 5y ago
    Many employees at Spotify did object to signing Joe Rogan.
  - qqqwerty 5y ago
    > employees reaching outside of their role to forward their political goals The vast majority of executives in the corporate world are conservative, and in addition to personally supporting conservative movements, they frequently direct company resources towards furthering right leaning agendas. Is it really that offensive that a handful of employees are at a handful of tech companies are trying to steer the ship in the other direction? Are you similarly offended when oil companies lobby the government to further the oil industries interests? Are you offended when corporations successfully push congress to pass tax breaks largely targeted at corporations and the rich?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- imgabe 5y ago
  I think it's pretty clear that Spotify wants to host it, seeing as they paid $100 million for the right to do so. It seems some employees, whom Spotify did not entrust with the decision to host this content or not, are mad about it and are attempting a hostile takeover of their company to run it according to their own politics instead of how the owners and managers have decided to do.
snicksnak 5y ago
always pay attention who you hire, especially in HR. Woke and activist HR hires woke and activist people, woke and activist people will cause you trouble and can wreck your whole ship. This is true for every industry but especially for media, just look what happened to the once so prestigious news outlets, all taken hostage.
- seriousquestion 5y ago
  Smart companies have already been filtering them out. See Coinbase, who literally paid them to leave.
  - geofft 5y ago
    Does this tend to improve the company's financial performance, or is this simply worth doing if you have certain political goals for your company that outweigh financial results? i.e., is this "smart companies" as in those with good financial ideas or "smart companies" as in those who want to build a non-woke world for the next generation? It seems like most SJW-converged companies have been doing just fine as companies, otherwise the invisible hand of the market would have put a stop to this long ago.
    - hanselot 5y ago
      Blizzard being the shining paragon in that regard?
- redmeatforchina 5y ago
  The ironic part is that even the most liberal anti-republican types are made miserable by woke employees. I worked at a tech company that went through the exact process you described. Liberal Democrat types used to keep politics out of the workplace for the most part. Then they started hiring woke brainwashed college students who aligned with them ideologically but not procedural. Now instead of the daily chat at the water cooler, we have employees screaming at meetings about the latest outrage, taking days off because something happened in the news, and crying when being woke doesn't help their performance reviews. Everybody is miserable and managers are fleeing.
bootwoot 5y ago
Is there a source for this? Seems way more likely to be monetarily pushed by either investors or advertisers (as other poster said) or at least pre-emptively done to appease those groups.
- nickysielicki 5y ago
  Source: https://www.vice.com/en/article/xg8jq4/spotify-joe-rogan-transphobic https://www.vice.com/en/article/xg8jq4/spotify-joe-rogan-tra... > One of the submitted questions was "Many LGBTQAI+/ally Spotifiers feel unwelcome and alienated because of leadership's response in JRE conversations. What is your message to those employees?" Another was “Why has Spotify chosen to ignore Spectrum ERG's guidance about transphobic content in the JRE catalog?,” referring to a group of Spotify workers who focus on related issues. > At the meeting, Ek also told employees not to leak to the media, noting "If we can't have open, confidential debates, we will have to move those discussions to closed doors."
  - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
    Although it should be noted that the main episode at issue in that controversy, with Abigail Shrier, wasn't one of the ones removed in this recent wave and is still on Spotify.
  - temp667 5y ago
    What is Spectrum ERG? Most corps do follow guidance from legal / HR etc to a degree - it's weird if that was being ignored.
    - sethhochberg 5y ago
      "ERG" in this context is probably an Employee Resource Group - a pretty common construct at larger organizations. Think of them as a formal way for employees with some kind of shared set of goals or concerns to organize and support each other, usually completely distinct from their actual job function. ERGs often have some kind of liaison from HR, especially since they are often associated with diversity programs. But the ERG itself is usually just advisory if they're consulted on something the company is doing.
ljm 5y ago
I heard second hand that the folks working at Spotify were incredibly unhappy about this Joe Rogan deal, and one of the reasons for that was because leadership steamrolled over any concerns they had. And there were many. I don't really know who this guy is or why you'd spend 100 million on him to secure a deal. But he's walking away with that money and Spotify is left with the infighting. They fucked themselves over with that absurd investment.
- imgabe 5y ago
  Why do their concerns matter? I thought private businesses were free to choose to host or not host any content they want, without any regard to anything or anyone? If employees don't like it, they can quit. Presumably, Spotify put some executive in charge of doing the Rogan deal, the board approved it, and that should be that. Donna from Accounting doesn't get a say. If you’re stocking the shelves at the grocery store management doesn’t care that you think they should only sell Wheaties and not Frosted Flakes. It’s not your decision to make.
- bgorman 5y ago
  It is not an absurd investment, Spotify is a commodity technology and taking away Joe Rogan podcast from their biggest competitor (Apple) provides much needed differentiation. Joe Rogan's podcast was the number one podcast on Apple Podcasts. Now it isn't available at all.
  - ljm 5y ago
    So you buy out Apple's number 1 podcast...and then Apple has another number 1 podcast. And you're sitting with a lame duck, as is evidenced by TFA. Is Spotify going to blow another 100 mil on that one and hope for the best? They messed up by betting large on a celebrity and ignoring the fact that Joe Rogan wasn't a cultural fit.
    - aleister_777 5y ago
      > They messed up by betting large on a celebrity and ignoring the fact that Joe Rogan wasn't a cultural fit. He's a cultural fit for x hundreds of millions. You may not fall into that demographic, but there's no discounting that other cultures exist outside of your own.
warent 5y ago
Politics are going to exist in the workplace no matter what because workplaces are made of humans. Advocacy and activism are a bad thing?
- imgabe 5y ago
  When they are stupid, yes.

thekashifmalik 5y ago

> Or is it rather a few employees who, emboldened by cancel-culture, will toss their political agenda around the office while other employees, intimidated by cancel-culture, shy away from calling out the obvious BS? This is it. The intimidation is real; look at what happened to James Damore.

gizmo385 5y ago
What is your interpretation of what happened to James Damore? I would guess you and I have different opinions on what exactly took place, but I'm not sure either of us can presume that our opinions on those situations reflect the ground truth of what actually happened.
- Manuel_D 5y ago
  My interpretation was that Damore said that forcing 50/50 outcomes is discrimination, and more broadly the claim that all gender disparities are entirely caused by bias is not correct. He laid out specific discriminatory policies (representation OKRs, coaching candidates for interviews but only if they belong to underrepresented demographics) and asked the company to stop. The depiction of the memo in the media was that he said women weren't as intelligent as men. Even though he explicitly called out that this is not what he was saying, he referred only to innate factors influencing preferences not intelligence.

readflaggedcomm 5y ago

Investors and especially advertisers may also pressure to remove content.

Traster 5y ago

Spotify bought Rogan because they want his average listener, it's cheaper for them to stream a podcast than to pay royalties on a song. They also don't want to have to answer questions about why a podcaster they (quasi) employ is doing X controversial thing. So that's what they do, they buy him and drop the controversial bits. It's not really that hard to understand is it?

anakaine 5y ago
Until you remember that his most popular episodes, and those that keep people coming back, are some of the most controversial. Talking about drugs, legalisation, smoking blunts with celebrities, hunting, and frankly being an openly right wing fanatic with some pretty intolerant world views at times are why he has a big audience. Securing both celebrity, tackling those taboo topics, and being a reasonably good host of conversation propelled him. Taking away the controversy puts him back in the group with nearly every other celebrity with a podcast.
- Traster 5y ago
  They're not removing 99% of that stuff though, they're taking away only the most extreme bits, and maybe that'll get worse and worse over time, but frankly I think that the business model means he's screwed anyway. Signing for spotify naturally puts him outside of the mainstream conversation (which isn't paywalled) so his cultural relevance is going to slide, erroding his negotiating position. In tandem with that is Spotify's push into podcasts work he'll be just 1 voice amongst many that spotify now has sway over, if it doesn't work Spotify won't care to keep Rogan around since they'll drop that aspect of the business model. Either was, Rogan's negotiating position peaked the day of the deal he signed, and he's probably aware of that. Short of someone like Apple waking up and deciding to do content, no one will offer Rogan that deal again.

sn_master 5y ago

> Whom does Spotify try to aquisice here? YouTube always claims they're demonetizing videos for their advertisers. i.e companies threatening to either boycott advertising on the platform entirely, or ones who don't their products appear in videos with certain content. Maybe Spotify is doing it for the same reason?

luckylion 5y ago
According to this [1] Spotify makes 91% of their revenue and nearly 100% of their profits based on premium membership, not ads. I find it unlikely that they're messing with their users' interests to make advertisers happy that make up a rounding error in the profits. [1] https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/120314/spotify-makes-internet-music-make-money.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/120314/spoti...
- sn_master 5y ago
  Interesting. Then perhaps its higher ups in Spotify who might be afraid of getting accused of hosting content that isn't in favor with the MSM and ruling regime in the US?
- alkonaut 5y ago
  I (N=1) would seriously consider cancelling my Spotify subscription if Spotify kept pushing Alex Jones. It's not that far fetched.
  - sn_master 5y ago
    What do you mean by "pushing"? Recommending him in your home page, with no option to disable the said recommendations? Or just hosting him at all on their platform? Do you have the same opinion about YouTube, which has every political spectrum and its polar opposite on the same platform?
    - alkonaut 5y ago
      I mean “sponsoring” or “enabling” to a level beyond just existing in their catalog does. I think it’s great that YouTube, Facebook, Twitter etc also ban Alex Jones yes. I see the risk of tech platforms acting as giant censors to be the smaller problem here.

cercatrova 5y ago

Nitpicking but it's "who" not "whom". One tries to acquiesce someone, so "who" is used as it's the direct object, not the indirect object.

hkt 5y ago
Spotify acquiesces to a pressure group of some kind, not the other way around. If we are nitpicking..
minitech 5y ago
- “whom” is for all objects, no direct/indirect distinction - I’ve never heard “acquiesce” used with a direct object and dictionaries don’t seem to have either - but they said “aquisice” anyway so who knows So yeah, it’s needlessly flowery and incorrect (name a more iconic duo), but the “whom” isn’t this time (although “who” would also be good).

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bigmattystyles 5y ago

There's a another group - ephemeral online mobs - People not involved with the content at hand in any way, shape or form contribute to a reactionary admonition and I'm sure businesses just want to avoid the controversy altogether. I don't know about Rogan for instance, but Hulu removed 4 episodes of sunny because of racist caricatures. They certainly were racist but the joke was on the characters using the caricatures. It's a silly example but nuance be damned. I don't think Spotify thinks its censoring anything, they just don't want trouble.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
The Sunny in Philadelphia thing makes no sense at all. Supposedly, Tina Fey pre-emptively asked to remove some of her own 30 rock episodes and that caused others to need to look like they’re doing something lest they be caught up in a PR storm. Makes zero sense in the context of comedies using it as the butt of jokes though.
- reducesuffering 5y ago
  That was the canary in the coal mine for me that activist mob outrage is getting out of hand. Another case of Gell Mann amnesia. When it’s a topic I’m extremely familiar with, the preemptive removal or outrage doesn’t make any sense. Those episodes literally had a discussion about the problems of blackface, and the point of the show is that the characters are terrible people and that’s why the characters did it.[0] Like you said, all nuance is lost in proactively defending against the online activist mob and we lose good discussion in the process. [0] https://youtu.be/-0L_oJMhcs0 https://youtu.be/-0L_oJMhcs0

softwaredoug 5y ago

This feels like a lot of speculation without evidence. According to the article, nobody knows what's happening and why.

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fareesh 5y ago

Society in the west seems to not know how to deal with this new variety of bullying. By cloaking their bullying in the veil of righteousness, bullies are able to engage in self-aggrandisement to satisfy the tyrannical need to shape the world in the image that they desire, without engaging in the civilized discourse and debate that would preclude such decision making. The justification thrown around is that the cause is righteous and therefore the ends justify the means, which is pretty much the same justification that has been used by every tyrant in the past. Standing up to them comes at a high cost, but when has it ever been easy. Perhaps the rest of society has too much to lose now.

Barrin92 5y ago
>Society in the west seems to not know how to deal with this new variety of bullying Society in the West in contrast to... what exactly? Are you under the impression non-Western societies don't shape culture based on norms and expectations about what's proper or right? How is Spotify deleting episodes from their own platform tyranny? Jesus people have become so dramatic and whiny. Here's a crazy idea, if you don't want your episodes deleted don't sell rights to your intellectual property for 100 million bucks to another party
- ziftface 5y ago
  Comments like the one you replied to honestly seem kind of silly. The "problem" you're describing is as old as time, it's not some new phenomenon the west bumped into.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    People across the world calling you a fascist / communist, with 30 seconds of effort, to their and your 1,000 closest friends, seems like a pretty new phenomenon.
    - krapp 5y ago
      "your 1,000 closest friends?"

JPKab 5y ago

I worked for a tech company until recently that had allowed a relatively small group of activist employees to trigger HR policies that have been extremely detrimental to the morale and bottom line of the company. Cowardly HR departments who don't recognize that, by and large, the activist employees are mediocre at best, rather than remotely productive employees, has made things worse. Also, companies like Spotify seem to spawn an odd lack of self-awareness amongst many employees about how utterly replaceable they actually are. Spotify is a video and audio streaming service. There isn't anything novel about that anymore, as proved by how rapidly HBO and Disney were able to roll out platforms which do the same thing. Even worse, the HR don't recognize this either. I can personally attest to the fact that the new CEO who was my last straw at my last gig care far more about his personal reputation at his Marin County country club than the bottom line for the shareholders. He acted accordingly, and the board of directors also care far more about their reputations.

gizmo385 5y ago
> Cowardly HR departments who don't recognize that, by and large, the activist employees are mediocre at best, rather than remotely productive employees, has made things worse. This feels like you're projecting your opinion of these people and their political beliefs (which it appears you disagree with) onto their entire character and acting as if your opinion of them is the reality of the situation. Are there activist employees that are poor performers? Probably. But it feels more like you're trying to paint an entire subset of employees negatively because you disagree with their political stances.
- JPKab 5y ago
  I'm simply pointing out that people who are into their actual work, as opposed to people who are into their work environments and cultures, are more productive. People obsess about managing time, but it's really about managing finite mental energy. Activist employees expend mental energy on social causes which don't benefit the bottom line of the company. I'm not saying they shouldn't be activists, I'm just saying they should do it on their own time, not at work and in the workplace. Exactly zero of the engineers at my company who were leading the charge on this stuff were standouts. Average performers at best, mostly sort of QA material and nothing more. I don't have real data, obviously, but my anecdotal, non-scientific survey of friends at Google, Amazon, Netflix, etc has shown a pattern of lower status employees being attracted to these activities. I don't actually disagree with a lot of the goals of the activist employees at my former Boulder-based tech company. I simply disagree with them using the HR department to impose their views and beliefs onto the majority of employees who don't want it, in a way that becomes disruptive and distracting from making money. At the end of the quarter, the assholes in charge who wouldn't shut up about equity are still making hundreds of times what the average employee makes, and will fire anyone if the numbers aren't what they promised in the earnings forecast. The social justice initiatives seem to be designed to turn the rank and file against each other, instead of having them ask if their CEO is really worth 300 software engineers in value to the company.

nbardy 5y ago

> will toss their political agenda around the office while other employees, intimidated by cancel-culture, shy away from calling out the obvious BS This is why it spreads so fast. You have one person who is loud, assertive and aggressive. And most people just want to avoid politics so they nod their heads.

nodesocket 5y ago

Completely agree it's coming from employees and staff who believe their political ideology is the gospel and implementing cancel culture until there is no opposition is their goal. This largely stems from the bubble and lack of diversity in political ideology in the bay area and Europe.

wdr1 5y ago

You forgot a forth group: advertisers.

djohnston 5y ago

At my own company it's very much this. As someone not directly impacted I would take a huge risk arguing against woke bullies for very little reward. Maybe when I'm on my way out I'll feel more comfortable sharing my opinion, until then I keep my mouth shut and cash the check. Write good code sometimes too..

xnx 5y ago

I'm pretty sure I read corporations are supposed to try and act in the interest of their shareholders. The preferences of users, content creators, and staff are all secondary to shareholders.