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.
I like Rogan's podcast but he definitely won't talk to anyone - When was the last time there was someone on that didn't agree with him on the major issue or issues they were brought on the podcast to discuss? They may quibble over certain things but at the end of the day he wants to have a fun conversation and arguing with trans rights people for 2 or 3 hours isn't going to happen. Also they've already censored his history and as far as I can tell he agreed to it
> When was the last time there was someone on that didn't agree with him on the major issue or issues they were brought on the podcast to discuss?
Rogan's schtick is that he lets his guests explain their ideology without directly attacking it. Instead he has an assistant fact-check any claims they make, and Rogan is also very forthright about calling them out on logical inconsistencies - "you said x just before, now you're saying !x, can you explain how that makes sense?"
The spirit of open curiosity and honest discourse is important. It also gives some ideologues enough rope with which to hang themselves, eg the Milo Yiannopoulos incident.
I don't watch every episode so I probably just missed some but what are episodes where they spend the majority of their time arguing for two different sides? At least with someone like ben shapiro, they might have philosophical differences but they can complain about misguided leftists and woke ideology. I can't imagine him having someone on like a trans rights activist or a BLM spokesperson
I’ve never listened to the show and don’t know enough to have an opinion on him. But if you employ a fact-checker they have to be checking both sides. Otherwise it’s biased;
people will misremember things even in good faith. And it seems that Rogan was wrong about some claims about the wildfires in Oregon — he admitted it on Twitter, but where was the fact-checker in that case?
You have morons out there saying corona is fake and mask are tool of enslavement + the whole Q mess.
Rogan is saying to wear masks and stay healthy.
Only think that he is saying wrong is the amount of vitamins to take (he is actually taking too much).
And he has no "I'm joking bro". As a matter of fact he is quite humble and admits when he is wrong. I don't know what you expect him to do? Fact check every minute of 3h conversation?
Look what you did, you roped me into defending podcast I listen to few time a month...
Just curious, what are some constructive criticisms or areas of improvement that could make the Joe Roegan podcast better? Also how long have you been listening to his show?
I've been listening since close to the start. I much prefer the episodes around science, music and nutrition but this is HN after all.
My biggest criticism is the new format of recording multiple episodes per day. I totally understand the logistics, but I find Rogan gets tired and interacts less with the guest and the episode falls flat. The best part of JRE is Rogan's engaged curiosity.
I'd rather have one high quality episode per week than gambling on how tired Joe is. I've actually stopped listening regularly because of this format change.
> I've been listening since close to the start. I much prefer the episodes around science, music and nutrition but this is HN after all.
Same here, the casual comedian/friend guest are usually cookie cutter episodes with small rants about their current lives (AND obligatory 15 min segment on how crazyup Comanche were and how badly they are mis-treated now - Empire of the Summer Moon - :) ).
Why does he then use his own voice to breathlessly repeat debunked rumors about left-wing activists in Portland? You think he'll correct the record in the next episode?
While he probably should retract that there is a lot of false information going around. I think people are conflating this guy https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.thepostmillennial.com/arson... with Antifa. But he just appears to be your run of the mill crazy arsonist.
Also it's worth pointing out Antifa did go around starting fires. Mainly in cities, burning down businesses and police cars.
He used to go around saying the moon landing was fake but did a 180 on that. So he might yet retract his claim.
I haven't found the trifecta of ('Oregon', 'Left-wing activists', 'forest fires'). But I wouldn't have written an article making a claim that it definitely didn't happen. "falsely claimed" and "debunked" are unjustified claims themselves.
We are living in a strange time where many people think they know more than they do.
But narrative goes beyond just logical inconsistencies. People can make entirely bs arguments that appear internally consistent to a surface view. Rogan is absolutely not doing leftists a favor by platforming right wing personalities, even if Milo did self-destruct.
That's unrelated. Rogan's interviewing process wouldn't be improved by having leftists on. The point is that "we have a guy who points out contradictions" is not enough to produce productive discourse.
The problem, as always, is that the plebs will listen to it and get the wrong idea.
Our venerable grandfather, of course, is smart enough to recoil from wrongthink; it's the human masses out there he's aiming to keep fed with the Correct Opinions.
> 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.
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.
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.
Is Spotify a platform for intellectual curiosity and free speech?
On the matter of free speech, Spotify isn't a public square. Facebook isn't a public square. A masonic fraternity isn't a public square. One of the key things about public squares is that it's funded by public money and administered by public officials.
How are people so keen on asking private companies to behave like public institutions... without asking for the other critically healthy pillars of public funding and public administration? It's sad, but I think it's because in some ways, people have come to actually TRUST big corps to be more morally responsive and deliberative than their own government. As in, would you rather Facebook own your messages, or would you like to see what concept of digital town square the UK or the US government would produce?
> Is Spotify a platform for intellectual curiosity and free speech?
Spotify wants to corner the market on popular podcasts. Of it’s very nature — anyone with anything or nothing to say can start one - podcasting might be the best modern example of free speech, and I believe podcasters know this. If they see Spotify as an entity that will require editorial modification or will refuse to post “certain episodes” then podcasters won’t make deals with them. This isn’t a political point, it’s a business point. If Spotify can’t achieve their goal of being THE SOURCE for the best podcasts which are exclusive to their platform then their shareholders will demand changes.
Podcasting is in a weird spot right now where the strategy that most podcasters take is to be on as many platforms as possible and there's a cottage industry+ supporting that initiative. It's the same effect as syndication but it looks more like federation. And if you look at the most successful audio content distribution strategies over the last 100 years and ongoing, exclusivity has rarely worked. Fundamentally it requires a content creator to choose to release to a smaller market, which is different than other content that is far more expensive to finance or maintain distribution (like film/video).
Basically what I'm saying is that cornering podcasting isn't going to work. But inverting the market to be cornered to the syndication/creation side and not the distribution/consumption side there might be a more effective way. I'd suspect that eschewing both publicity and censorship would be critical to cornering that market. After all, Disney+* and Pornhub have content made with the same tools and sometimes the same people, while both retain their image.
+ if you want to see what I mean, turn on your adblocker and go to open.spotify.com and start browsing podcasts from ESPN, APM, and others and open the developer console. There are a number of interesting failures when ads are resolved, and a lot of little companies you've never heard of writing some cool networking infrastructure to distribute podcasts.
\* well maybe not Disney+. They might have a policy for this exact situation.
> How are people so keen on asking private companies to behave like public institutions
It's ironic to see the same people turn around and say that the internet is a public utility and service providers shouldn't throttle content or filter content.
> people have come to actually TRUST big corps to be more morally responsive
That is a pretty outlandish statement to make without something to back it up. I'd love to see an actual poll if people trust Google and Facebook to police what is moral. Last time I checked there was a poll that said people are more afraid than ever to say what they feel in public.
https://www.cato.org/publications/survey-reports/poll-62-ame...
> would you like to see what concept of digital town square the UK or the US government would produce
This is a straw man. US Government struggles to build a basic website - they aren't going to build a "digital town square". On the other hand, I don't think it's unreasonable for the government to have clear policies on a person's legal rights to use large platforms to discuss what they want without fear of being de-platformed.
They signed an exclusive deal with Joe Rogan. I don't know if they intended to send that signal, but it made me check them out for exactly that reason.
Spotify has already made the decision to exclude multiple Joe Rogan episodes from their catalog, this is just a decision of where they draw their line.
This is unfortunate and unacceptable. Joe should have a free and censorship free place to discuss topics.
We have lost our minds: the ability to freely and discuss literally any topic was an American staple. Now you don’t dare say something that could potentially offend someone.
I could be fired if I said what I really think about some controversial issues and linked it to my identity. That’s not a world I enjoy living in.
I'm not convinced we're worse off than in previous decades. Granted, the type of views that are "offensive" changed and there were some clear power shifts (and from your statement I assume you're on the losing side of that shift), but having to conceal your views for fear of retribution was always a thing.
Now I don't know what this was like previously, but nowadays one of the most common travel advice for vacations in the US is "Do not talk about politics with Americans. It's not a good topic for dinner conversation over there."
Make of that what you will.
Now what I've been wondering after hearing that advice multiple times is: What do Americans talk about at dinner and other occasions? Because here political issues is about half of a typical dinner conversation, the other half being recounting recent news and events. Even most of the jokes we make are political... I probably wouldn't know what to talk about.
Many cultures frown on turning dinner time into debate time. It's been that way for generations. They talk about politics among family and friends or people with similar opinions.
This advice is more about protecting Europeans from an uncomfortable experience on vacation because of exposure to political views they will find objectionable, than about some fundamental inability to talk about politics in the U.S.
I'm exposed to political views I find "objectionable" just by talking to my parents. You put five of my family into one room, and we'll be voting for six different parties. If everyone agreed there wouldn't be much to talk about.
Though calling political views you disagree with "objectionable" as in "offensive" is starting on the wrong foot already. You can't convince someone of your POV by acting offended.
Where is this travel advice coming from? It sounds like typical cultural ignorance to me. I'm American and (when I lived there) would have no qualms talking about politics with seemingly everyone regardless of meal time. There are certainly some people who will have a stronger response these days due to increased polarization, but if you speak sensibly and thoughtfully it's difficult to see it becoming an issue.
I dunno, seems consistent with my experience in the midatlantic/northeast. politics is absolutely on the table with close friends and my family. outside of that, I find people usually avoid discussing politics unless they are confident everyone else present already agrees with them.
Nowadays you seem to get fired when telling a "dongle" joke privately to another colleague, but someone overheard it. Sorry, but that is absolutely crazy.
I have a few fun colleagues that tell jokes all the time. If they get fired for this, I'm instantly quitting.
Just searched for that story, and it is indeed unfortunate.
I'll grant you that social media and current climate created a new phenomenon of "mob justice" for inappropriate opinions or comments, but in the opposite direction people are less afraid of management/ownership than they were before (the victims of which are sometimes today's mob).
I'm genuinely interested to know what the net result is.
We absolutely are. We're more divided than ever. I am on the losing side of the shift. I never had to conceal my views for fear of retribution before. I could be in an echo chamber, but I am not alone in this sentiment.
In the 90s some politicians tried to ban gangsta rap, and there was an official policy that "prohibited any homosexual or bisexual person from disclosing their sexual orientation or from speaking about any homosexual relationships, including marriages or other familial attributes, while serving in the United States armed forces".
I'm not trying to negate your experience. I'm just adding context about other people's experience in a recent past.
I'm not claiming the past was perfect. Some changes are absolutely positive.
Here's my anecdote. I look back at films from the 80s and 90s where free speech was discussed or otherwise a component of the plot. It was unthinkable to censor thoughts, or allow the government to spy and collect data on the citizens.
Regardless, information is shared as such a rate now that comparing them to anecdotes from the 80s isn't even applicable. I'd have trouble believing a radio talk show host from the 80s would host self-proclaimed neo nazis like Joe Rogan has. If anything, speech is so free now that we see opinions that wouldn't have seen the light of day a few decades ago. Which is why content hosters are having to tackle the question of what they allow, and hopefully they make the right decision.
Did Joe Rogan literally proclaim himself as a neo-nazi or is it a hyperbole? Genuinely curious, since a quick web search didn't shed any light in that question
But they'll find a way to talk to like minded people; and then you'll be surprised how many of them there are.
BTW, who are those millions you want to protect? Are you afraid otherwise sensible people will be infected by
some opinions expressed on media? Isn't this a bit paternalistic?
It's better to fight the enemy in the open field; let's have people talk and show who they are and what they actually mean by what they say. Let's criticize what is wrong with what they say and not just said by somebody that got lumped together in the same camp. Let's have an open a tolerant society, in which intolerance itself is exposed for what it is openly and not given ammunition by being intolerant of any people.
It has been shown over [1] and over [2] and over [3] again that deplatforming is effective. So yes, they'll still find a way to talk to like-minded people, but you're incorrect if you think there will be nearly as many.
You're coming at this based on the idea that everyone is rational and sensible and (re)evaluates their views based on logic. Our brains don't work like that; literally all it takes for someone to warm up to an idea is being repeatedly exposed to it [4], and that's before you even get into things like confirmation bias/pleas to emotion/peer pressure/etc.
Using this reason to censor ideas that you disagree with _will_ lead to censoring ideas that you do agree with. Power corrupts, and if people have the power to censor certain ideologies, that will be corrupted and exploited.
I’m not advocating for de jure censorship of Nazism. But a “power corrupts” hypothetical about stigmatization makes no sense — society writ large has always had that power and will always have that power.
And yeah, it sucks that people on the margins of that such as sex workers get hurt, which is why we need to push to change those stigmas. But the alternative is letting open pedophiles teach your kids, or asking Jews to defeat their genocide-preaching Nazi coworkers in the “marketplace of ideas”. So all things considered it’s a fair trade.
If sensible people are immune to racial and ethnic hatred, then why have we seen it all over the place throughout history. People should have seen right through Blood Libel and not massacred all those innocent jewish people, right?
Of course not. Media and narratives matter. Fascism has succeeded in the past at murdering millions of people. There is no fundamental reason why it couldn't happen again.
Of course media narrative matters! especially if you control what can be said and only say that one thing. And people go used to this and assume that if all official media is singing the same tune there is something fishy. I'm arguing that total deplatforming (not just effective criticism, I'm talking about total deplatforming) backfires.
Letting people talking about things even if we don't like them, doesn't mean suddenly you have to bend to their narrative and make them control all of the media. But you should return the favour and not fully control the media too.
>>>Media and narratives matter. Fascism has succeeded in the past at murdering millions of people. There is no fundamental reason why it couldn't happen again.
Always interesting that stifling the fascists and Nazis is so popular* but no one ever mentions the ongoing need to silence the communists, who are in the same "ideology with a 7-figure body count" category. Why is that?
Everyone does not deserve the chance to talk. Pick up a history book, I think you will find some good examples for why Nazis do not deserve a platform or space to talk about their political views in society.
I wish you were joking, but I know you’re not, because Americans have been censored and lied to their whole lives. In fact, the Cold War had already came and went at that point. “Free speech” has always been an American myth.
Free speech isn’t an American thing. In fact its part of the universal declaration of human rights.
> "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers".
I think the big shift is that back then everything wasn't recorded. This made it so that limitations on speech were dependent on where you spoke and with whom. Nowadays everything can be recorded and outrage spreads faster too.
I find this view difficult to square with the fact that not too long ago we were censoring and blacklisting communists, and the lingering sentiment is not “whoa, we were really against free speech for a while there” but “communism is evil”.
Yes - and even from the government - consider McCarthyism or Hoover's FBI and the civil rights movement.
This fear of saying the wrong thing seems to say a lot more about the expanding reach of both corporations and individuals (and for individuals, the growing scale of memetic behavior) rather than some change in attitude towards free speech.
> This is unfortunate and unacceptable. Joe should have a free and censorship free place to discuss topics.
> We have lost our minds: the ability to freely and discuss literally any topic was an American staple.
On Spotify specifically, though? I don’t remember a time in America when I was getting paid to post whatever I felt like saying into a microphone to Spotify.
> We have lost our minds: the ability to freely and discuss literally any topic was an American staple.
Sex, breasts, swearwords? As far as I can remember the American staple was and is to bleep every fucking thing that could potentially be connected to a nipple.
I don't know about the rest, but I think bleeping swearwords is partly an editing decision. It makes swearing seem more effective (powerful?) to me. It's a at to emphasize swearing.
Bleeping swearwords and sex is about keeping things innocent and appropriate for children. Has nothing to do with censorship. No ideas are discussed when a breast is blacked out.
>This is unfortunate and unacceptable. Joe should have a free and censorship free place to discuss topics.
I mean, Joe signed the contract and choosing what to exclude was more than likely discussed in negotiations, or even written into the contract. He opted to take this route.
Knowing his agreement with Spotify was entered into voluntarily, and based on the evidence now at hand, it seems Joe's commitment to free speech is something less than unconditional.
Let's say in your heart of hearts that you earnestly thought that, for whatever reason, women couldn't be effective software engineers. If you said that in public, you should be fired because it would immediately call into question your ability to work within your team, your ability to respect your co-workers, and potentially bring negatively adverse financial consequences to your place of work and damage its reputation.
Now, I don't know what you actually believe, but it's worth noting that you currently have all the free speech you want and have always had. What you're arguing for is free speech AND no consequences, which isn't and was never guaranteed.
let's say you think capitalism is evil, destroys the environment and the essence of humanity, etc., and you say that in public. wouldn't that also call into question your ability to be an effective employee and work towards the interests of the company? wouldn't we all be very upset if someone got fired over that?
I don't really disagree with your specific example (or that there have always been things that you can't really say in america), but in general it's a shitty way for the world to work. we should seek to change it.
I don't think offense is the issue. People are being fired, denied housing, and murdered for being trans for example. Joe Rogan called being transgender a "social contagion", which is going to cause people who respect and trust him to not want trans people around.
If somebody's going to commit an act of violence based on a radio host's statements then they already have serious issues, and it's only a matter of time before something sets them off.
This was always the case, it's only that recently you feel it's been extended to your particular issues.
At various times in the history of the US specifically, but analogues exist in most other places, you could have been fired or otherwise pariah'ed for:
Freely discussing the conditions and rights of laborers
Discussing political ideologies like communism
Discussing various sects of Christian belief
Discussing Non-Christian beliefs
Being for or against political popular movements
Being against police authority
Discussing or demonstrating opposition to wars
Simply being one of a set of ethnicities
Being, or discussing, being gay
Being, or discussing, being an atheist
While I personally think that Joe Rogan's podcast, the conversations of a pedestrian comedian and self-professed moron who sometimes lands interesting guests, is a strange hill for Spotify to be fighting on, there was no time in US history that such "unfortunate and unacceptable" events weren't happening.
McCarthyism and the blacklisting of many otherwise wealthy entertainers is usually the textbook case of this and that is within living memory. This sickness is rooted deeply in American culture, and we only think there was some reprieve due to the academic freedoms and immense prosperity of a post-WW2 boom era that ended 40 years ago, followed by a brief period of online semi-anonymous expression that lasted until around 2000 when the great masses finally found it and brought it back to the baseline awfulness of the rest of the culture
Funny that you and jakelazaroff above are getting downvoted. I have observed that lot of free speech advocates generally get annoyed if someone speaks the truth.
This site has both a lot of the sort of people who "don't see race" and use that to downplay social issues, and people who (irrationally) insist in the primacy of rational thought and view speech as a consequence-free action. Don't expect good or nuanced discussion on the subject.
What's funnier is that I'm not even strictly in disagreement with the notion that free expression is important, although I do deeply resent disingenuous attempts to shield an argument with a persecution complex.
What does "freedom of speech" have to do with any of this? The government has not intervened with any law restricting speech. Spotify is a private company and, under current US law, can de-platform anyone they chose.
Freedom of speech is a principal first and an American law second.
Freedom of speech and expression is the bedrock of the civilized world, an important part of modern culture and is indeed defined as a human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I don't understand what you mean. What's the issue with someone voicing an opinion you don't agree with?
Diversity is good because you get many opinions from many perspectives. It fails once you start selectively picking and choosing which ones you deem worthy.
I don't think there is room to discuss how much censorship you're willing to accept with people trying to censor you. At the end of the day their feelings don't matter - they're just technocrats trying to control the speech of others because they got hired by Spotify.
Joe will talk to people but probably not people trying to destroy his business through their employer who he has a contract with.
One thing is free speech and another is giving a platform to dubious characters for them to promote their views unchallenged. What's the risk? you might be smart enough to know better but other's will use Rogan's vouching of X personality to validate their view points "well he was invited to Rogan's show so he must be important and must be listened to! have YOU been featured in Rogan's show?". I'll remind you that a good portion of the population doesn't even think vaccines work and that they do damage, don't think wearing masks help, believe in 'staged false flag' events to the point of bullying victims. The internet has allowed anyone to become a 'soft journalist' but completely ignoring what made journalism work, ethics (depending on the org, of course). See related (specially points 4 & 5): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism_ethics_and_standard...
Honestly I expect that as time goes and people wisen up, the more serious and legit a personality is the less likely they will be to accept an invite to that show until it is just bro-ey comedians and controversial personalities that need a steady flow of more supporters so they will say yes to the opportunity to expose their ideas unchallenged. Controversies sell well and Rogan is aware of that, at the end of it he only cares about growing his wealth and not freedom of speech.
BTW, I believe almost no one wants to change the amendments and remove freedom of speech. Those characters will still have the means to communicate their ideas and will be protected by the law, matter fact I myself have donated to ACLU who have defended the KKK in the court of law for the higher purpose of defending freedom of speech and rightly so. See https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-em-defends-kkks-rig...
I'm assuming fans of Rogan will be happy to read my comment since as Rogan promotes, we should give a platform to anyone or any idea and let people decide by themselves. Or that doesn't apply to his dissenters?
> One thing is free speech and another is giving a platform to dubious characters for them to promote their views unchallenged
Those are literally the same thing. Free speech means ideas compete on their merits in a marketplace of ideas and no central authority gets to decide which ideas are worth considering. You can be against free speech --- many people are these days --- but you don't get to claim to be in favor of free speech but not this speech or that speech.
Freedom of speech is the right to not be persecuted/sued/shut-down/jailed by the government. Emphasis on government. It's a free market place of ideas, you are allowed to say anything but you are also allowed to suffer the consequences of what you said and be confronted about it by other peers. It's not called "freedom of speech and receive unconditional support and applause". People are free to criticize Rogan, Spotify, their guests, your comment, my comment, etc. Any individual or company is allowed to decide on their contracts or thru whatever means on how to handle this situation that turn into public relation issues. No one is saying throw Rogan and all his guests in jail, they are just exercising their freedom of speech in saying "hey do we really want this partnership, and why?"
False. Neither freedom of speech nor censorship are tied to the concept of a government. They are much more fundamental and basic than that. Additionally large tech platforms control enough of societal discourse that they function as defector public squares. Censorship by tech companies is as effective as censorship by governments.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
> The protection of freedom of expression is premised upon fundamental principles and values that promote the search for and attainment of truth, participation in social and political decision-making and the opportunity for individual self-fulfillment through expression.
There is a legalistic sense of free expression/speech in various countries, yes. But it is also a philosophy and worldview that goes far beyond a legalistic sense. One that emphasizes toleration of dissent and competing views as a process to find truth, and one that recognizes the inherent importance of expression in human actualization and dignity. In that broader sense, the state/non-state distinction starts to fade away.
If they're trying to interfere in his contract with their employer it's tortuous interference
Maybe they just need to have freedom of speech but not freedom from consequences and it will all work out.
Why do you care what Rogan says? With the way you describe him it’s clear you don’t like him. Don’t pay attention to him, then. The problem is people today who go against the grain are vilified by these bleeding heart outraged critics who have nothing better to do than attempt to cancel people. People are fed up with it.
I like him, I'm supporting his idea of giving anyone the right to express their ideas. Therefore, I'm interested in the people that also have their concerns about his shows and Spotify's business decisions and they must be heard/read, why are you intolerant to other views and want to censor them by suggesting people to turn their heads? That sounds like canceling to me and btw I don't want to cancel anybody.
If I ignore him, I don’t have information to formulate a view point about him therefore its a suggestion to shut up and censor me. I thought Rogan espouses differing points of view, what’s going? Or only when you support him unconditionally?
That is some dubious reading of the law. JR can sue whomever he wants to for it if he thinks it happened, it's not like he cannot afford lawyers or something.
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)
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.
I wonder how true this really is. Several podcasts I listen to use Patreon, and based on subscriber numbers they are doing quite well for themselves.
Some of these podcasts offer vanity perks from Patreon, some lock away exclusive content that's only available there. But to access that exclusive content, the technology you use is... RSS.
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.
> 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.
There’s quite a few podcasts with in show ads doing quite well. I think it’s possible to make more money through youtube, Spotify, etc. But it’s not hard to make money, it’s just possible to make more using techniques that are more closed.
I mean proprietary app stores make more money than open platforms, but yet Linux still exists and independent software devs with their own storefronts still exist.
Spotify is buying but Joe choose that path too. I understand the concern but maybe there is something about the market that makes selling to a closed ecosystem more attractive?
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
> 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.
Sarcasm? If you disagree with what you quoted, perhaps you could explain why? Simply saying you disagree doesn't really move the conversation forward, does it?
It seems quite obvious to me those are not equivalent statements, but if you think I'm wrong I'm willing to listen to why you think that, if you're willing to explain it.
What's disingenuous is describing hate speech as "mean things". Have you ever actually heard of someone trying to make "saying mean things" illegal? Can you give an example, even if anecdotal?
> Spotify employees have the right to voice their concerns if the company they work for is alienating them.
For sure... So why is Bill Cosby still on Spotify?
And if transgender rights are our priority, why are endless numbers of outspoken anti-trans a-holes like Ted Nugent still on there?
Or, hey, what about the incredible number of songs stuffed with the n-word, the b-word, the f-word, the r-word, the c-word, anti-trans sentiment, and detailed descriptions of lawbreaking and violence?
I'm unsympathetic to shallow, hypocritical, and inconsistent morality plays.
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.
>Spotify has the right to choose what is on their platform.
They do only as far as whatever the contract they signed with Rogan stipulates. Since some of his old shows are being censored, it seems that the contract allows for censorship, though to my knowledge the contract has not been made public yet. Seems likely we'll find out.
Freedom of speech is a concept that exists independently of any law or government. Just because it is not illegal for private companies to censor speech does not mean that it is not infringing on the concept of freedom of speech.
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.
This is a private company making its own decisions, not the government.
Also, cancel culture is a catch-22 where those who named and bash it frequently turn to it all the same by going after private companies and persons like Ted Cruz trying to boycott Nike this summer. It's almost an oxymoron. Everyone does it to some degree and it is a perfectly lawful way to vote with your wallet aka boycott those with opinions or actions counter to your morals. Personally I find Trumps fraudulent use of his NY charity, shut down after he settled fraud charges, more than enough reason to boycott him and those who support him. If that's cancel culture, then good.
> What happened to freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, freedom to choose.
Most people are petty and simple-minded, only supporting liberal principles like individual rights and protection of diverse views from the cultural powers-that-be when 1) their side is the one that needs protecting or 2) they blindly absorb the prevailing wisdom, which happens to be liberal in some lucky eras (usually prosperous and optimistic ones).
As much as both sides of the political spectrum like to fling "you started it" back and forth, the reason we're seeing the same decline in basic liberal values across the spectrum is that liberalism-as-civic-religion is in retrenchment for complicated structural reasons, and most people aren't remotely capable of understanding what a principle is, let alone holding one.
As always, the ultimate victims of illiberal lurches in norms will be the marginalized.
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.
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.
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.
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-...) 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.
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.
And this is from 2012. I'm frankly not sure how I feel about this issue. On the one hand, you could argue it's better to transition before puberty solidifies the undesired sexual characteristics. On the other, certainly some of these kids would end up feeling OK fine with where nature brings them after puberty passes. It's a tough issue and I respect both viewpoints.
More broadly, your reasoning here is rather silly. Just because you haven't noticed something yet doesn't mean it isn't a real thing.
I think the terms used in the article are confusing. The clarification is about halfway through:
The drugs used by the clinics are approved for delaying puberty in kids who start maturing too soon. The drugs' effects are reversible, and Spack said they've caused no complications in his patients. The idea is to give these children time to mature emotionally and make sure they want to proceed with a permanent sex change.
The sex reassignment doesn't happen until they are at least 16 (which is still earlier than I expected).
That’s the thing puberty blockers aren’t exactly reversible when used for any substantial duration and quite often cause developmental issues in general, these aren’t cases of premature puberty you can’t just pause it for a few years and expect things to go back.
That's not what the medical consensus[1] says. I hope you have some damn good evidence to the contrary if you want to deny tens of thousands of people access to life-saving medical treatment.
Do puberty blockers fully delay puberty? Most people who go through puberty seem to behave in ways that is frowned upon if done by older individuals. If puberty blockers also block that, then won't this affect the social maturation of the person? Going through puberty in your 20s seems quite rough. Or does that not happen?
Quoting the spectator destroys any kind of argument you're trying to make. The Spectator isn't a credible source for any medical information, especially for anything about GIDS and GICS.
They're an explicitly anti-trans publication, and have posted many articles railing against trans acceptance.
James Kirkup spends his days posting anti-trans material on twitter.
Because he's driven by his ideology of hate he makes a load of mistakes throughout this article. For example:
> Although the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) advises this is a physically reversible treatment if stopped, it is not known what the psychological effects may be.
This isn't talking about the effects of hormone suppressants, it's talking about the psychological harm of discontinued transition for people with gender dysphoria. If you start a course of treatment thinking you're finally on a pathway to full transition, and then you have to stop for some reason, that stoppage causes harm.
Another example is the way he claims to be talking about puberty suppressants, but then links the list off effects for cross-sex hormones. Those are never given to people under 16 in England, so they're not relevant to a discussion of puberty suppressants.
> why has the NHS so significantly changed its main publication on hormone treatment for children without any announcement or fanfare?
Because that's how the NHS website works. This is, frankly, a silly point.
> Given that the NHS now says that hormone therapy for gender-variant children has unknown long-term effects on the physical and mental health of those children, why is the NHS still using such treatments on children?
We don't know if these are harmful or not (but all the evidence we have so far suggests not). But we do know that denying children access to these meds causes harm. There's not much difference here between puberty suppressants and many other meds used for children. We don't know the long term effects of a bunch of meds, but you don't hear the Spectator ever talking about those meds.
I’m not quoting the spectator I’m showcasing the changes the NHS has implemented to their guidance following the investigation into the Tavistock clinic and the studies the NHS commissioned.
We don’t know anything yet mostly because we don’t actually have studies in which puberty blockers were reversed all the studies such as those in the Tavistock clinic the the Dutch Study that showed that puberty blockers are safe didn’t actually had cases where these were stopped but in all cases went into cross hormone therapy and then surgical transition, those that didn’t end in suicide or severe self harm at least.
> I’m not quoting the spectator I’m showcasing the changes
Everyone can see the link that you posted. You could have posted links to the Wayback machine, but you chose to post a link to a transphobic article in a transphobic magazine written by a transphobic writer.
Your second paragraph is incoherent. I can't understand what you're trying to say.
> We don’t know anything yet
This is wrong.
> but in all cases went into cross hormone therapy and then surgical transition
...because they're very careful about who gets those meds, and they're only given to children with severe gender dysphoria.
He has talked about this at length (its was most of one of the episodes), or rather his guest did.
Its a lot more nuanced, the conversation on that particular episode was about whether _children_ are both mature enough and not likely to change their opinion about having hormone therapy/etc, frequently before puberty. And the situation those children's parents find themselves in, and how much of that situation is the child seeking a transient identity to belong to or various other reasons that I suspect a lot of people find to be red flags. Much like a lot of JRE conversations, certain things are condemned, usually outlandish things everyone can agree are outlandish, but he also notes that there are reasoned counter points, and he is willing to concede on them. The result is a gray line that no one who actually listens to these conversations can frequently conclude is coming down hard one side.
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.
Presentation matters. Calling somebody a "man in a dress" is wildly transphobic. He didn't dispassionately discuss his opinions about transgender people. He resorted to nasty transphobic depictions.
While I disagree with Shapiro on his LGBT views, I'd hardly consider them extreme. His views on that topic are totally in line in traditional conservatism.
I'm not arguing one way or the other here, just pointing out the absurdity of the situation... They apparently won't host Chris D'Elia's appearances on the JRE podcast but they host his comedy albums. Brilliant.
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.
Same reason why every article about Kobe Bryant's was flagged to death in HN and not restored by the moderators; whereas an article about Bill Gates' father or random people not linked to tech get so many up-votes and comments.
Maybe these employees could put together some type of Employees Music Resource Center (EMRC) to help the general public not get exposed to viewpoints some people consider negative. They could add a label to the albums they find offensive with an Employee Advisory logo.
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).
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.
On this issue, Joe has talked at length on the nuances of his position. It’s not strictly an anti- position, and it’s not on identity. Personally, I find his position to be reasonable.
Is that bad? We have separate men's and women's sports for physical reasons, right or wrong I could understand being concerned about folks crossing those boundaries and gaining an advantage in sport.
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.
Hosting content is plainly supporting it. You are helping it move to the people that are attached to your hosting (which is not normally a thing but of course in the case of spotify is, they have a captive audience).
Edit: A lot of the rhetoric about "dissenting voices" fundamentally boils down to Nazis wanting to speak about Nazi shit and being given a platform. They do not deserve one, because the ideology quite simply cannot be trusted and should not exist.
Why do people always jump to Nazis when discussing free speech issues? Seriously. Why do we have to compare every unpopular minority to the literal Third Reich?
Yes, many minority groups are absolutely terrible and deserve the contempt they get. That absolutely includes Nazis. However, many minority groups throughout history - ones who weren't advocating for genocide, eugenics, and world domination - have had to fight against oppression to have their voices heard.
Like it or not, what is ethically acceptable in a society is determined by popular consensus. Abhorrent ideals can, and have become acceptable by virtue of simply being popular. Our consensus should be challenged and evaluated regularly. If we truly are right, we should not be afraid of having our views put to the test.
Besides, if you don't expose people to alternative opinions (even terrible ones), then you never have a chance to adequately explain why those opinions are wrong. If you teach someone that something is right or wrong and never fairly address points from the opposition, that person is going to be relatively easy to convince otherwise.
We see that happen with people in political parties all the time. Someone grows up a staunch believer in a particular party's ideals, then suddenly flips when they are put in a position to consider the other party's points.
Simplifying the issue to "Nazis wanting to speak about Nazi shit" is extremely disingenuous.
Spotify should be permitted to host what it wants to. But they should also listen to their employees who do the work that makes the platform run. This article isn't about an angry Twitter mob making demands of a private company, it's about workers raising an issue with the company leadership and expecting an appropriate response (which does not necessarily mean removing content)
The article is pretty sensationalized - it does not explicitly cite what the employees were looking for or what the leadership was willing to do. We've got the content of two employees' questions, a comment from the CEO that doesn't seem to be a response to either of them, a canned response from a comms person after the fact, and a rehash of Rogan's latest controversies.
> But they should also listen to their employees who do the work that makes the platform run
Should they listen to all employees, about every single issue? What if only 1% if employees ask for it? Or 10%? Where’s the line?
> This article isn't about an angry Twitter mob making demands of a private company
I don’t work at Spotify but worked enough at big companies to disagree with that. Behavior of employees inside trendy tech companies is very much like angry Twitter mob.
> But they should also listen to their employees who do the work that makes the platform run.
Only if those employees are presenting objective arguments e.g. "adding this podcast may lead to customers cancelling their subscriptions, or to legislation being applied".
If it's a case of "I don't like it" then the company doesn't have any obligation to listen.
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.
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.
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.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts.
Rogan is mostly an opinion guy but he has spread covid disinformation and hosted guests like Alex Jones who say things like Sandy Hook was staged. That's not harmless self-expression. Spotify is under no obligation to host anyone's content and certainly not required to pay $100M for content that is detrimental to society.
He has guests from all spectrums, I believe it's healthy to listen to all sides and debate them on their merits.
Regarding your point about "harmful to society" I would argue that there are plenty of individuals (not myself) who would claim vulgar lyrics or promotion of drug use is "harmful to society" but I don't see those individuals having a voice and trying to cancel and deplatform those ideas.
> He has guests from all spectrums, I believe it's healthy to listen to all sides and debate them on their merits.
One could easily argue that Joe does in fact not debate many of his guest and instead allow them to use his show as a platform if they so desire.
> Regarding your point about "harmful to society" I would argue that there are plenty of individuals (not myself) who would claim vulgar lyrics or promotion of drug use is "harmful to society" but I don't see those individuals having a voice and trying to cancel and deplatform those ideas.
Those individuals are still alive and loud depending on where you live.
> One could easily argue that Joe does in fact not debate many of his guest and instead allow them to use his show as a platform if they so desire.
I haven't watched a lot of JRE but in general I see nothing wrong with people having the time to layout their thoughts and opinions more or less uninterrupted for an extended period of time and then listen to rebuttals and debate in comments or separate blog posts, videos etc.
The other end is political debates or interviews with opinionated journalists where they barely have time to say a sentence at a time. This doesn't have to be bad but a lot of time its just bickering and platitudes. It doesn't provide much depth.
Who gets to decide what is a detriment to society?
Going out on a limb here, but at one point everyone thought the world was flat. Preaching that the earth is actually round, was seen as a detriment to society. So much so that people got horrifically executed for it.
We don't know anything. So sensoring ideas because we don't like them, or they seem farfetched, is probably, a real detriment to society.
> Going out on a limb here, but at one point everyone thought the world was flat.
Maybe. More likely, at one point most people weren't concerned with more than the local topography.
> Preaching that the earth is actually round, was seen as a detriment to society. So much so that people got horrifically executed for it.
I won't say definitively that that never happened, but it certainly isn't something that there is any historical evidence I've ever heard of, and it sounds a lot like flat-earth mythology, possibly conflated with (exaggeration of) the actual heliocentrism controversy.
Well, that's a REALLY long time ago. 1300 years ago the vast majority of people believed that the world was round. The flat-earth theory is strangely enough a relatively modern theory.
Alex Jones was on JRE on Feb 27, 2019, which appears to have been at the height of the litigation against him (1).
I'll take your word that's what he said (so in that sense, you're right, it's a "fact"), but if you're giving him the benefit of the doubt...well, what could anyone say?
He's been held in contempt of court, de-platformed, has a DWI and, more damning, has made similar inflammatory claims since.
(1) - I just googled, apologies if I got the dates wrong.
What bothers me here is this pattern of personal destruction.
It seems that certain people have somehow been declared "unpersons". The tactic is to develop a list of the 6 or so worst-sounding things they've ever done, always phrased in the shortest and most inflammatory way and devoid of any context or later explanations that might mitigate how bad they are. Then, any time that person's name comes up, a crowd of people appears to repeat those same sound bites in various combinations over and over again. The goal is not understanding, but to discredit and destroy people. Anybody who tries to provide context or mitigating factors for the selected sound bites may become a target of the destruction too.
Alex Jones is not an angel. But then a great many people in public life have done things that can appear damming when packaged into sound bites like this. What matters is not whether Alex Jones is good or bad, but who decides what persons this tactic will be deployed against.
What also matters is what kind of world we are building with this tactic. If somebody has done something bad, do they not deserve a chance to explain themselves, give their side of the story? Maybe roll back some ideas that turned out to be a mistake. If somebody has been declared to be an unperson somehow, and the goal is to do our best to prevent them from speaking at all in any forum by shouting them and any supporters down like this, well exactly what is it that we want them to do?
I understand your message and don't disagree, but I think choosing Alex Jones as an example for this message is crazy given that he has literally made his life's work giving a vocal platform to inflammatory content.
Every fact is theory-laden. There are no theory-neutral facts. What usually happens in natural sciences is that one theory wins over others; therefore, there is no dispute about facts such as "2 + 2 = 4" or "the speed of sound is ...".
He's also interviewed Bernie Sanders and I believe JR said he would vote for him.
Many people would consider[0] (not without zero justification) that Sanders is the most prominent USA representative of an ideology that has killed more people in the last century than any other ideology.
Do you really want to go down the path of mutual assured cancellation?
[0] no, I am not saying Sanders is a homicidal maniac, just in case people want to take that inference.
Who has the authority to identify which facts are not somebody's own? Can a fact be converted to an opinion by prefacing it with "I believe..."? Is an opinion forbidden if, like your own opinion here, it's stated in the form of a fact? What happens to people who published facts that later turn out to be wrong? Are the retrospectively punished? Are the people who denied those "facts" before they were disproven somehow compensated for having had their rights wrongly restricted? I don't think you've thought your idea through at all and are just grasping at an excuse to make your political belief sound authoritative.
Remember when people used to say America invaded Iraq so it could control the oil? That was counter to the official reason for the invasion so, according to your idea, they were not entitled to publish that. It was also not harmless self-expression because it could have altered public opinion about a war, which can have serious consequences.
The "truthiness" of debate has become toxic. It isn't possible or healthy for everyone to have the same interpretation. The demand for this impossible standard is disturbing.
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.
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?
I guess the point is that a person should not be discriminated based on things they don't control, like race, sex, gender etc.
But the trend being described here is exactly that. Affirmative action, curtailment of free speech etc. Even many diversity initiatives.
It doesn't matter if it discriminates positively, contrary to society's past regressive discrimination. This positive discrimination goes against liberal principles.
>>>I also don't get the "You have to fit in a bucket" theory. What's an example you've experienced?
Straight from the mouth of Joe Biden: "If you don't know whether to vote for me or Trump you ain't black." Yeah, because a near-80yo white man is obviously the final arbiter of my ethnic identity if I don't conform to his politics.
I'm not very keen on calling that "liberal". For one, it goes against the very definition of liberalism, which covers equality and liberty. No individual should be judged based on factors they don't control. A liberal would not oppose free speech.
But the main reason I disagree with this "liberal trend", which I'd call "leftist trend", is that I disagree with them and identify as a liberal.
No, really, the only difference is the identity around which it is organized: if the identity is membership in “our country”, the poster supports it, and he opposes the increasing political relevance of alternative primary identities as a threat to the power of his preferred identity.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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??
"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."
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.
Catholicism is an explicitly evangelical religion. The idea that trans people want to turn everyone trans is a scare story. We used to hear the same scare stories about gay rights activists trying to turn kids gay. Generally, scare stories like this don't come from a good place. If you're saying that someone could be innocently misinformed, then sure, that's possible in principle, but good intentions only go so far. They'd still be spreading damaging misinformation about a highly contentious issue.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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?
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.
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.
On the other hand, tons of people love his podcast for this (including me). To me it really feels like he meets an interesting person at a bar and they have a long interesting conversation.
I think we all are tired of journalists that are fishing and pushing their guests.
There will always be haters when you are so popular. But don't forget that he remains really popular.
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.. :)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> This reminds me of people back in the day saying that homosexuality is a "disease" which is being spread by homosexuality.
You're just assuming that the hypothesis of contagion necessarily carries some negative connotation.
I generally tend to believe there's a strong contagion element to all kinds of behaviors. But that doesn't inherently make them wrong.
A lot of the born-this-way arguments for all kinds of phenomena arose simply in response to negativity. The point being "if I can't change it, you cannot judge me for it". Almost implying that it is indeed a bad thing.
The basic idea of the paper is investigating teens who did not show symptoms of gender dysphoria in their youth, who had what the author calls "Sudden onset gender dysphoria" after being exposed to trans-friendly content (youtubers, tumblr blogs, etc), and who have one or more friends in their social group who become trans at the same time as they did. You can read more here: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
I agree with you that I am not likely to transition if one my peers did. That's not really what the author is saying. The author is saying that some people (specifically teenage girls) seem to be transitioning together, without prior symptoms of gender dysphoria, after being exposed to content about trans people.
This research may be right or wrong. Trans-identification may or may not be a social contagion. I lack the expertise and evidence to judge. However, I can tell that the idea that this is a "completely unscientific" question is wrong by evidence of their being scientific research about it.
"Social contagion" doesn't mean the author thinks of trans-identification as "a disease". Social contagion means that it is spread through social interactions, which is why multiple individuals in friend-groups will sometimes develop sudden onset gender dysphoria together.
Anything can be 'the subject of academic research' if you just find one sufficiently biased individual willing to write an article.
The paper that you link (which is the only one that ever gets trotted out when this subject comes up...) had to be corrected after publication and has been widely criticised for its poor methodology.
The author sought to find evidence to support the idea of transgender identification as a social contagion by surveying only parents who reported 'rapid-onset gender dysphoria' in their kids recruited specifically from anti-trans / 'gender-critical' forums 'transgendertrend', '4thwavenow', and 'youthtranscriticalprofessionals'.
The fact that their sample was obscenely biased is right there in the intro to the study. The fact that the study had to be corrected is right there at the top of the page.
It seems like you are shifting the goalposts somewhat. In my comment, the claim I'm responding to is that the idea that trans-identification is a social contagion is "an entirely scientifically baseless idea". To rebut that claim I linked scientific research supporting that idea.
You, in turn, replied that the research I linked was not very good. This is shifting the goalposts from "entirely scientifically baseless" to research that satisfies some unknown and nameless criteria of yours.
You also mention that it "had to be corrected after publication and has been widely criticised for its poor methodology." That's an interesting point, but to my knowledge, the critics that drove that correction were trans activists rather than scientists. It "had to be corrected" (to the state it currently is in today where it makes the argument I reference) because of protests from these activists. The wikipedia summary of the controversy surrounding this paper says[1]:
"Criticism was voiced by transgender activists, and two weeks after publication, PLOS One responded by announcing a post-publication review of the paper. In March 2019, the journal concluded its review and republished Littman's revised and corrected version."
It's also not really a coherent criticism to say that, when I was faced with a claim that something is entirely non-scientific, I responded by citing the most frequently cited scientific paper to rebut that claim. Okay, it's a frequently cited scientific paper. That still rebuts the idea that the social contagion hypothesis is entirely non-scientific.
>"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.
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?
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.
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"
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.
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.
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?
She brought attention that people put social pressure on underage teens to get trans operation without their parents' consent.
I would be very angry if it would happen to my 13-17 year old daughter, as children in that age are not yet capable of understanding the consequences of the operation for there whole life (includung shortening it and making it painful by injecting hormones).
While on one hand yes, I understand that as a parent you want to guard your children against decisions that you feel might negatively impact them you have to keep in mind that there is a reason why a teenager goes to someone else with their problems. That reason starts with your behaviour as the parent, and not with an environmental factor.
That said, children are not your property. They are your responsibility. If you're doing your job right, they've at that point been educated about what it means when someone transitions and what sort of impact it has on their life. During that talk, I expect you would speak about why you think that shouldn't happen before they're done growing.
Out of respect for the emotional place this post most likely came from, I will refrain from addressing the frankly problematic sentence you put between hypotheses at the end of your post at length.
,,If you're doing your job right, they've at that point been educated about what it means when someone transitions and what sort of impact it has on their life. ,,During that talk, I expect you would speak about why you think that shouldn't happen before they're done growing.''
I have no opinion actually on whether the transition should happen or not, I'm sorry if I came out too strongly about that.
I believe it can be a good decision if a child is clearly behaving and feeling like she is a boy.
What I'm most afraid is that lesbian children thinking that heterosexual girls will like them if they transition.
The parents are responsible for the children as long as they are given the chance to respond, which is taken away by law in a few countries. But I'm right now 38 and I still have lots of secrets about my sexual life that I don't talk about with my parents, and I think that's OK, as none of them can be compared to the consequences of transitioning.
What I see really important is to make sure that people know about the changing laws, make sure that those important changes are talked about.
That you brought that interview up at all guarantees you didn't listen to it.
Abigail Shrier is very supportive of transgendered people, and conveyed in some depth her numerous interviews with medical health professionals who provide aspects of gender reassignment and agreed with their unequivocal experience that it's helping people.
Her book is specifically about statistically aberrant behaviour in small groups of female teens that show atypical behaviour compared to normal transgendered people that are being given hormones and life altering treatments with minimal oversight, often to their lasting detriment.
I do not agree. How is that transphobic? Is the action of inviting an author motivated by irrational fear of trans people? Are the views[1] of the author irrational and based in fear of trans people?
My understanding is the author is skeptical of the rise in reported cases of gender dysphoria over time. She contends that the rise in cases is partly a result of tangential social influences that are ultimately detrimental do development of kids. Rational skepticism is not phobia.
This is a frustrating line of argument. What would make you the authority on what transphobia is?
> Are the views[1] of the author irrational and based in fear of trans people?
To "arrive" does not mean "to cross a river". To be "awesome" does not mean "to be terrifying". Meanings are not constructed by etymology. Transphobia is not "the irrational fear of transgender people".
The author is not a "rational skeptic", as clearly evidenced by her wildly biased choice of analysis presented as solid science. Her work has been widely criticized by the scientific community and is not far off from forming opinions about racial differences in IQ by asking aparthied leaders about their opinions and experiences and taking it as gospel evidence.
I do not presume to be an authority. In fact, that is what my original comment was asking: What is transphobia? You have rejected one definition but failed to provide an alternative. That leads me to the second part of my original comment: is it something subjective that you'll know when you see it?
I'll have to read her work in more depth to form an opinion on the rigor of her work. Suffice to say, I view your evaluation of her work with skepticism as well.
It's not just skepticism though, she strongly staked out the opposing position. I would say it is irrational to have such a strong opinion on such little evidence.
Also, -phobia doesn't only mean fear. It can also mean dislike or hatred.
A strong opinion and skepticism are not exclusive.
Now we come to the core of the issue: what constitutes an acceptable balance between strength of opinion and evidence? Who arbitrates that? I say it is quite subjective.
You say her opinions are irrational and exhibit phobia. I disagree: I'd say putting such a definitive label on her position is irrational.
If you're interested in understanding how postmodernism has been subverting meaning, motivating chaos, and how it's married to activism watch this interview:
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.
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.
Alex Jones plays an insane persona to make money off of his viewers. This is an established fact that he himself has admitted to. Thus, taking the words of what is essentially a cartoon character as any kind of truth is in itself the evidence of someone who has lost touch with reality. If that is you, you need (and deserve) help.
If you re-read my comment, the only thing that I am saying is why the mainstream media is sensationalizing this event "OMG - Alex Jones removed from Joe Rogan's Spotify :o!!" vs. actually asking for Spotify and Joe Rogan to comment. If there is no comment, there is no story.
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.
How does that make sense as a contractual obligation?
"You can leave some episodes up on YouTube to attract more fans... BUT you can never publicly explain why you're doing so directly, though feel free to tell your friends and they can tell the public."
Because the episodes are supposed to come down off Youtube later. It could also be that Rogan is supposed to keep quiet until Spotify can decide how best to proceed and if they want to reinstate other episodes (which they have already done). Joe speaking out of turn could be bad for Spotify.
Aside from Rogan's interview, I've never listened to Alex Jones. In fact, the link to his story appears on the first page (last link) on DDG with "joe rogan alex jones removed episodes". Yes, the websites are also fake news outlets. But there's a difference between "fake news" the term. And news that is fake. We shall see if this news turns out to be fake.
Don't know how aware are you about Alex Jones and his theories - Some of them include the government mixing medicines in the water to subdue the population and that is making the frogs gay and so many more fascinating globalist Illuminati bed-time stories.
There is news, there is fake news -- then there is Alex Jones. A category to himself -- he is as tin foil as you can get.. That guy has some serious problems, steer clear.
