The Sussexes ‘expressed concerns’ to Spotify about Joe Rogan last April

Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and other artists are now pulling their music from Spotify because of Joe Rogan and his long history of spreading misinformation on Covid. Rogan famously took horse dewormer when he had Covid, and he’s said some weird sh-t about vaccines too. Rogan is the jewel in Spotify’s crown – the last contract he signed (in 2020) was for $100 million and that’s because of the kind of numbers he brings in. But clearly, there are a lot of musicians who don’t want to stream on the same platform as Rogan. Interestingly enough, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are not walking away from their Spotify contract in protest. But they are clearly feeling the pressure to say something, which is why their spokesperson confirms that they did speak to Spotify about the Rogan issue.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have expressed their “concerns” to Spotify over Covid-19 misinformation on the platform, joining a growing group of personalities putting pressure on the streaming service amid a dispute about Joe Rogan’s controversial podcast. The pair first raised the issue last April and have continued to urge Spotify to root out misinformation, a spokesperson for their foundation, Archewell, said on Sunday.

Their invention comes after Neil Young and Joni Mitchell both asked Spotify to pull their music from the platform, objecting to its popular “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast in which the host has made frequent false and inaccurate claims surrounding vaccines and Covid-19.

“Since the inception of Archewell, we have worked to address the real-time global misinformation crisis. Hundreds of millions of people are affected by the serious harms of mis- and disinformation every day. Last April, our co-founders began expressing concerns to our partners at Spotify about the all too real consequences of COVID-19 misinformation on its platform,” an Archewell spokesperson said in a statement. “We have continued to express our concerns to Spotify to ensure changes to its platform are made to help address this public health crisis.”

“We look to Spotify to meet this moment and are committed to continuing our work together as it does,” the spokesperson added. The statement did not specifically mention Rogan’s show. CNN has contacted Spotify for comment, but has yet to receive a response.

[From CNN]

As I said previously, it’s not like Meghan and Harry are the only high-profile people with Spotify contracts. Barack Obama does a pod with Bruce Springsteen, Michelle Obama has a Spotify podcast, Dax Shepard puts out Armchair Expert through Spotify and on and on. I’ve seen the tweets about artists like Taylor Swift too, that if Taylor yanked her music from Spotify, the company would likely dump Rogan. I still don’t know. I get that the point of all of this is about applying public pressure to get Spotify to deplatform Rogan and I think there are multiple avenues for it. Dumping all of it on Harry and Meghan’s shoulders – or any artist’s shoulders – is kind of tough.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid and Instar.