Something Went Wrong Please Try Again Google Home Spotify
The Joe Rogan Experience Spotify website page on a laptop estimator arranged in Saint Thomas, U.Due south. Virgin Islands, on Saturday, Jan. 29, 2022. Spotify Technology SA outlined steps it will take to halt the spread of misleading data about Covid-19 on its audio-streaming service in an attempt to quell a growing controversy over its support for the podcast host Joe Rogan. Credit - Gabby Jones—Bloomberg/Getty Images
Spotify has a much bigger problem than Joe Rogan.
The streaming service has been in damage control mode, trying to quell the outcry over COVID-19 misinformation spread past Rogan, the wildly popular podcast host. Earlier this week, Spotify released its internal rules prohibiting "dangerous content," and said information technology will adhere an informational to any podcast that discusses the pandemic, directing listeners to a new COVID-xix informational hub.
Simply despite these moves, CEO Daniel Ek as well suggested this is a free speech effect. He stressed that Spotify doesn't want to become a "content conscience" and that he is committed to "supporting creator expression."
That's where his trouble starts. He is hiding behind the same argument that platforms like Facebook and Google make—that Spotify is a platform that distributes content created by others, but isn't really responsible for that content. That's a dubious proffer for Facebook and Google—and it's completely nonsensical when it comes to Spotify.
Spotify isn't some sort neutral conduit. It isn't simply a tool that podcasters apply to upload their piece of work. It'due south a publisher. It makes intentional choices nigh the content it disseminates, especially when it comes to Rogan. This is a crucial distinction. Spotify paid Rogan a reported $100 1000000 for exclusive rights to his podcast. He is the streaming service'south biggest star, its calling card, its billboard name. Rogan is Spotify. At that place's no daylight in between the ii. For Spotify to maintain that it's not responsible for what comes out of his mouth, or that somehow it's likewise hard to moderate their content, is ludicrous.
I've spent my career in publishing, including as editor in chief of United states of america Today. Anybody in my field would be out of a job if we knowingly published nonsense then disavowed any responsibility for it. We would exist liable if we intentionally published false information. My office was always to ensure that the news nosotros published was accurate and fair. When sources pushed falsehoods, our responsibility was to challenge them and to written report the facts—not to paw them the microphone and turn up the volume.
Spotify is in a similar position. The Rogan episode has thrown into high relief the question of whether it'south a "platform" that but allows creators to spread content, or whether it is a media company, which has legal liability. The reply has implications not just for Spotify but for other digital platforms that have begun paying some content creators, including Facebook, Snapchat and TikTok. From my vantage indicate, the reply seems pretty clear. When yous pay to larn content, "you're it." Y'all don't get to take it both ways: yous can't both own it—and profit from it as Spotify does—yet not take responsibility for it.
This isn't a First Amendment consequence. I'1000 as violent a defender equally you will find of freedom of speech. Joe Rogan and his guests take the correct to believe and say anything they'd like, without fearfulness of regime reprisal. Merely the Constitution doesn't give them the right to spout misinformation on whatever platform they choose. Spotify, as a individual company, gets to make its own rules, to make choices about what it allows and doesn't on its ain air. What information technology doesn't get to do is set rules and then pretend information technology isn't responsible for enforcing them.
Ek's proffer that moderating content would brand Spotify a "censor" is especially egregious. It'due south a harbinger human argument: nobody'south asking Spotify to be a censor, not fifty-fifty its harshest critics. They're simply asking it to publish standards and uphold them. That's not "censorship." It'southward fact checking.
The current controversy was kicked off a few weeks ago when more than 250 scientists and healthcare professionals wrote an open up letter of the alphabet about Rogan's podcast "promoting groundless conspiracy theories." They were particularly alarmed past a December podcast in which Dr. Robert Malone, who had already been banned from Twitter for spreading COVID-19 misinformation, declared that people who trust vaccines are victims of "mass formation psychosis." Presently rockstar Neil Immature pulled his music from Spotify, rapidly followed by vocalizer Joni Mitchell, while author Brene Brownish paused her popular podcast.
Scrambling to undo the impairment, Rogan took to Instagram to say, "If I pissed you off, I'm sorry," and to hope he would try to "balance things out" with "more experts with differing opinions." Spotify'southward CEO Ek, meanwhile, put out his web log post, but conspicuously didn't mention Rogan, suggesting there won't be any repercussions for the podcaster.
What'southward more, Spotify'due south rules are so broad they likely wouldn't make a difference in most of Rogan's episodes anyway. Spotify says it bans "dangerous false or dangerous deceptive medical information," for case, yet its definition of what constitutes "dangerous" (drinking bleach, claiming vaccines are "designed to cause death") is so extreme that there'south plenty of jerk room for less egregious but equally faux information. The "advisory" that Spotify plans to suspend to podcasts mentioning COVID-19 is unlikely to help. Research has shown that warning labels don't necessarily stop the spread of misinformation and in some cases may increase information technology.
Information technology's possible that the Rogan episode will continue to metastasize, especially if Spotify's other major stars threaten to walk—fans have been calling for Taylor Swift to take a stand. Simply even if it dies downward, as many Rogan controversies have before, information technology has already chosen attention to the other potentially problematic content Spotify carries. Anyone tin add a podcast to Spotify; the visitor says it has three.two million of them. About of those creators, unlike Rogan, aren't paid past Spotify, and the company says it will remove content that violates its newly revealed guidelines.
That'southward where the real lasting legacy of this affair may play out. Spotify says it bans any content that "incites violence or hatred" toward whatever person or grouping. Yet New Stateman author Volition Dunn, in a search of the site, easily found podcasts that gloat white nationalism, Nazism, racism and homophobia, and that encourage vaccine hesitancy and climate change denial.
Rogan may be the most visible purveyor of misinformation. Only what'southward disturbing is, in that location'southward a lot more than where he came from. It'southward time for Spotify to wake up and take responsibility, and finally human action like the publisher it already is.
Source: https://news.yahoo.com/spotify-much-bigger-problem-joe-234927156.html
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