WHO Chief Thanks Neil Young For Pushing Spotify To Cut Joe Rogan Over Covid Misinformation

Topline

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed support for Neil Young after the singer-songwriter demanded Spotify remove his music from the platform if it continued to host Joe Rogan’s wildly-popular podcast, which features baseless conspiracy theories about coronavirus vaccines.

Key Facts

Tedros thanked Young for “standing up against misinformation and inaccuracies” about coronavirus vaccines. 

The public and private sectors – particularly social media platforms – all have a role to play in ending the “pandemic and infodemic,” Tedros tweeted Thursday.

Tedros’ message followed an open letter to Spotify earlier this month from 270 doctors, scientists and educators calling on the platform to crack down on misinformation and take down an episode of Rogan’s show featuring a doctor named Robert Malone, who the letter said promoted “several falsehoods about Covid-19 vaccines.”

Spotify regrets Neil’s decision to remove his music from the platform, the company told the New York Times, but said it hopes “to welcome him back soon.”

Key Background

On Monday, Young published a now-deleted open letter to Spotify that claimed the platform was spreading “fake information about vaccines” that could prove deadly, and specifically singled out Rogan’s podcast, the most popular on Spotify with an estimated 11 million listeners per episode. Despite the popularity of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Young argued Spotify has a responsibility to “mitigate the spread of misinformation” and gave the platform an ultimatum: his music, or Rogan’s podcast. Spotify began to pull down Young’s expansive discography of 40 albums Wednesday. Rogan has come under fire for making misleading or outright false comments about the coronavirus pandemic, including suggesting in April that young, healthy people don’t need to get vaccinated. In December, Rogan interviewed Malone, who plugged a baseless theory called “mass-formation psychosis” that argues as much as one-third of the U.S. population has been “hypnotized” into believing vaccine news from mainstream media outlets, Dr. Anthony Fauci and President Joe Biden. 

Further Reading

Spotify Will Reportedly Remove Neil Young’s Music After Dispute Over Joe Rogan (Forbes)

Neil Young Demands Spotify Pull His Music Over Joe Rogan Covid Vaccine ‘Fake Information’ (Forbes)