Spotify has announced will add ‘content advisories’, i.e. trigger warnings, to podcast episodes that discuss COVID-19, directing people to the platform’s ‘COVID-19 Guide‘, which includes podcasts by BBC News, the Economist, the New Scientist, the Guardian and Nature. In addition, it has published its ‘Platform Rules‘, which include the following description of ‘Dangerous Content’ that will be banned from the music streaming platform:
Content that promotes dangerous false or dangerous deceptive medical information that may cause offline harm or poses a direct threat to public health includes, but may not be limited to:
– asserting that AIDS, COVID-19, cancer or other serious life threatening diseases are a hoax or not real
– encouraging the consumption of bleach products to cure various illnesses and diseases
– promoting or suggesting that vaccines approved by local health authorities are designed to cause death
– encouraging people to purposely get infected with COVID-19 in order to build immunity to it (e.g. promoting or hosting “coronavirus parties”)
These announcements are clearly intended as a sop to the musical artists and others who are unhappy about Spotify’s decision not to remove Joe Rogan’s podcast in response to Neil Young’s threat to withdraw his music unless it did. But will they be sufficient to quell the rebellion? According to the Verge, which broke the story, an internal memo revealed that Joe Rogan’s podcast doesn’t “meet the threshold for removal” under these new rules.
The Verge also reports that an earlier draft of the ‘Platform Rules’ went further:
[C]ompared to the document posted internally and viewed by the Verge, the wording on examples has changed, and one line is missing entirely. It specifically called out “Suggesting that wearing a mask will cause the wearer imminent, life-threatening physical harm”.
Daniel Ek, the billionaire founder and CEO of Spotify, is keen to stress how on message he is when it comes to COVID-19 – unlike his pesky podcaster. In the announcement in the Spotify Newsroom, he writes:
I want you to know that from the very first days of the pandemic, Spotify has been biased toward action. We launched a variety of educational resources and campaigns to raise awareness and we developed and promoted a global COVID-19 Information Hub. We donated ad inventory to various organisations for vaccine awareness, funds to the World Health Organisation and COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) to increase vaccine equity and supported the Go Give One fundraising campaign. And we established a music relief project to support the creative community. While this is not a complete list, I hope it gives you a sense of how seriously we’ve approached the pandemic as a company.
I trust our policies, the research and expertise that inform their development, and our aspiration to apply them in a way that allows for broad debate and discussion, within the lines.
Within the lines. Interesting phrase. Rogan is currently “within the lines”, but that may change. Note that the ‘Platform Rules’ setting out what you’re not allowed to say, i.e. what’s outside the lines, “includes, but may not be limited to” the various things it explicitly prohibits. So the CEO has given himself the wiggle room to shift the line so Rogan ends up on the wrong side of it.
You can read more about this story on the Post-Millennial.
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So what.
Don’t give them the oxygen.
Links to positive, sceptical content anyone?
There are loads out there…..
Wow. It sounds as vague as saying that ‘profanity’ might lead to a permanent ban.
“So the CEO has given himself the wiggle room to shift the line so [commenter] ends up on the wrong side of it“
He’s surrendered to wokism.
Mee-owch. I hope whichever trembling quim put that “Be nice or I’ll cry!” warning on DailySceptic can spot their own hypocrisy in a mirror.
Perhaps it was just a test to ascertain how alertly sceptical we are?
Will that satisfy Young, Mitchell, Harry and his puppet master? Who cares?
I suppose Harry and his Mrs will try and take the credit for this.
No but that isn’t the issue.
Firstly, Rogan is in a bit of trouble. How much remains to be seen, but the hyenas aren’t going to stop there. If he were still on YouTube he would have been removed ages ago. If Spotify is pressured into dropping him (and that could still happen) where does he go? Life outside of the big media platforms is cold and no where near as lucrative.
Secondly, I admit to being very blase about censorship thinking it was all a bit overblown and I admit to being terribly wrong. I’ve woken up to it to find all the ground lost. It seems as if it’s no longer possible to even make the argument for free speech. No major media organisation seems to even want to try. It is a given that some form of censorship is required and the question is simply how much. I didn’t grow up in a world in which that was the case, but it sure is now and it’s quite chilling.
If Joe does get cancelled, won’t Spotify still have to pay him his $100 million?
I think so. But even more interesting would be how fast spotify falls. It is very obvious in recent months how many people are willing to stop using companies and outlets that show Wokeness and Weakness to bullying.
The ground outside big media is growing fast. Every new venture has to start somewhere and it seems to me there are very many podcasts whose viewing figures outstrip the main stream now.
It remains to be seen if CEO Spotify is an astute businessman. The test was Neil Young. No one cared about Neil Young. Does anyone care about and ginge and whinge. It seems to me they will be another complaint that the Spotify members don’t care about. This is being blown up by the owned media. If Spotify understands this and holds their line, the company will grow fast. Any successful businesswo/man knows their customer is their wage provider.
I’ve listened to his podcast since about 2015. He isn’t doing it for the fame whatsoever, in fact I think he sounds quite stressed from it all recently.
He’d enjoy taking the money and being low key again. For someone who is “far right” he’s had a lot of big names on his show.
I agree that if there is someone who will take it in his stride, it may well be him.
However, he is obviously motivated my money. Why else would have he signed the Spotify contract and moved away from YouTube in the first place?
These folk may be very good and successful musicians, but they don’t have a clue when it comes to medical matters. Can you imagine the reverse, that doctors would threaten to pull their papers from a medical journal unless it banned a particular view on music?? Utterly ridiculous, and pathetic.
I can see self hosted servers being used heavily with cryptos being used to tip and donate, like in a few months. No market-makers and transaction fee’s (well 99% less) when Bitcoin’s lightning network is used.
Peertube is an open source service which you can upload and post videos. Only concern would be the traffic. But PT has a function where subscribers receive an email notification when a new video is uploaded. I use an instance of one and paste the video’s iframe to articles myself.
Like what is happening on Gab?
Sounds to me like Spotify has blinked. Worst thing to do with crazed mobs. They then demand more and more.
This would have died a death. Watch it now develop an unstoppable momentum…
Yup. Like wild dogs, they attack harder whenever they sense weakness. You can’t capitulate your way out of it, a lesson which I hope we’re all cognisant of.
It is simply astonishing what a couple of washed up pop stars and an ostracised royal can stir up.
The pile on is definitely only starting. The sharks have smelt the blood.
I think its more their media who push the narrative and create a frenzy. If Spotify hold firm now and give no more ground there will be a real backlash to Whinge and Tinge. Neil Young has seen the backlash. No one is interested in buying or listening to his music. He has already lost money.
Unsurprising, and a reminder that Spotify are not good guys merely because they sided with their biggest money source.
“the following description of ‘Dangerous Content’ that will be banned from the music streaming platform”
The near universal approval of this kind of attitude and behaviour throughout the modern US sphere is the cultural consequence of allowing the idea that society can and should be manipulated in order to prevent “dangerous” ideas from being heard. That we must assume that the solution to bad ideas is not free discussion, but managerial censorship, because people cannot be trusted to reach the “correct” conclusions.
Implicit in this is the assumption that authority can be trusted to impose the “correct” positions – something that has been demonstrably and self-evidently untrue for decades now, and most glaringly so during the covid panic.
Among those principally to blame for this are the political correctness campaigners of the late C20th.
Joe Rogan said his doctor, Pierre Kory, is part of a group that has used Ivermectin to quietly treat 200 Members of U.S. Congress for COVID19. Dr Simone Gold, from America’s Frontline Doctors, told that she has prescribed treatments for Congress. She still believes in her oath, but she is vocal saying she has been contacted by many in DC. Can you believe these demons? Healing for them are OK but not for us. Get your Ivermectin while you still can! https://ivmpharmacy.com
If Omicron (either current version) is as mild as predicted, some Night Nurse and bed rest are likely to preclude the requirement to source invermectin from overseas sources.
All these censor bugs have one thing in common: a terror of the idea that their audiences might have some intelligence. On the whole, the last two years have shown that they don’t need to worry.
In other, happier news…
I suppose the sad part of that ‘news’ is that the Health Secretary has only just realised that his failure to bully health staff into receiving medical treatment they didn’t want might result in the sainted NHS performing even more badly for those it has failed over the last two years.
The Mekon is a bit ‘slow’, it seems.
https://mauihawaiitheworld.wordpress.com/2022/01/30/rockin-in-the-free-world-neil-young-joni-mitchell-and-the-slippery-slope-to-censorship/
Could he change it to ‘Opinionating in the Free World’ I wonder?
DT reporting NHS cancelling staff vaccine mandates.
Hats off to Steve James & many others for standing up to intimidation.
Great news, it begs the question, if they don’t need it, why does anyone else?
Don’t celebrate too soon. Remember Savage Jabber doesn’t like people who stand on the shoulders of others. I wouldn’t be surprised if they now look at enforced jabs for everyone in order to avoid being accused of singling out certain occupations – in the interest of everyone’s health, of course.
Hmm. We’ll see.
What is DT? Sorry, not in GB.
Daily Telegraph
Or, a limp, woke rag, if you’d like the full, updated description.
It’s reassuring to know that these celebs have our best interests at heart. I would hate to be inadvertently exposed to “misinformation”.
Off-topic but great news as Sunday draws to a close: according to the Daily Telegraph, Britgov seems about to scrap mandatory vaccination for healthworkers!
This could be because those who want to keep Boris Johnson in office don’t want to associate him with a policy of “emerding” (© Emmanuel Macron) on nurses and other healthworkers – including by obtaining information about their vaccination status without their permission – but whatever the reason for it, it’s good news.
Also reemployment of sacked care home workers, according to the same story:
“The legal requirement for care home staff to be fully vaccinated came into effect in November. An estimated 40,000 people lost their jobs over the policy. Under the new rules, they are expected to be able to return to work in the sector.
On Sunday night, care home representatives expressed fury at the handling of the issue, saying the flip-flopping had “devastated our workforce and brought providers to their knees“”
They’ll quietly delete all the… problematic… episodes over time, as they’ve already done with his back catalogue. They even flushed his chat with Carl Benjamin down the memory hole, even though it was mostly Rogan tossing Benjamin around like a chew toy rather than promoting his alt-lite-right narrative.
And that, kiddy piglets, is how Spotify saved the world! Not.
Saving the income stream would seem to be the aim. It would be amusing if ceding this ground led to Spotify’s demise, but then I’m not a customer, so wouldn’t mind.
I wonder if there’ll now be an advisory at the top of the BBC news page as a warning to the naive, and the uninitiated… that what they are about to read is based on the BBC’s opinion of what we should be made aware of, what we are best not knowing, and what we should say think & believe?
FFS!
Joe Rogan knows who he is and who his audience is. I hope that he gets out in front of this and tells Spotify to stick it where the sun don’t shine.
Take your business elsewhere, to a friendly platform!
Nils Lofgren is the latest one to cancel himself 🙂
Big buddy of Neil’s of course, since he was invited to play piano on ‘After The Goldrush’.
I must admit, I don’t know much about spotify. I can’t be doing with all these new fangled apps and things so it won’t affect me other than make me angry that yet another communication vehicle is participating in stifling truth. I’d be livid if I was expected to pay for it!
Maybe put a warning on Neil Young tracks “may contain boring unimaginative lyrical content from a washed-up has-been, listener discretion advised”.
Or for podcasts where they interview Harry and Meghan “warning – so much bland predictable wokery that it’ll have you clawing your eyes out”.
Spotify’s new content guide is right about AIDS not being a hoax. It’s a brilliant, heartless medical ponzi scheme.
‘It’s a brilliant, heartless medical ponzi scheme.’
Just like covid.
Warning!
This content may contain truth that is not conducivie to the WEF technocratic plan for the future.
Dear Spotify, try treating your subscibers like grown ups and let them decide what to listen to. Dear Harry and Sparkles, for people who escaped to get privacy, you do a great job of opening your mouths and talking sh1te too often! Back to your many mansions with you.
Surely this can only lead more and more people to realise that something is seriously wrong with this bullshit pandemic.
‘A prisoner of the white lines on the (not so) freeway.’
Nice one.
How about Pissing on Summer Lawns?
I wonder if Neil Young or Joni Mitchell even listened to the podcast in which Joe Rogan interviewed Dr. Robert Malone. I suspect they haven’t because not only have they failed to identify the specific offending podcast(s) (everyone is assuming it’s the aforementioned one), but they’ve not mentioned one single thing that Dr. Malone said that – in their view – constitutes dangerous misinformation that puts lives at risk. I have a policy that if I’m critical of what someone else says or does, I do three things – or at least try to:
1) I pinpoint the specific comment(s) or action(s) that I think are wrong.
2) I detail how/why they are wrong and, where appropriate, cite expert third party sources to support my criticism.
3) Outline what I believe to be the correct information / course of action and again, where appropriate, cite expert third party sources to support my assertion.
Young and Mitchell have failed lamentably to do any of the above which, in my view, makes them look complete idiots. And that’s a shame, as I’ve been a fan of their music for 40+ years.
Perhaps Neil and Joni weren’t specific because they’re hard at work writing songs about it.
Being both Canadian, they might like to comment on the Freedom Convoys, too, since they’re both so committed to opposing The Man?
Neil Young has come a long way from the 1969 Woodstock days, and his participation in anti-establishment songs like ‘Almost Cut My Hair’, which he recorded in 1970:
Almost cut my hair
It happened just the other day
It’s gettin’ kinda long
I coulda said it wasn’t in my way
But I didn’t and I wonder why
I feel like letting my freak flag fly
Yes, I feel like I owe it to someone
Must be because I had a flu for Christmas
And I’m not feeling up to par
It increases my paranoia
Like looking at my mirror and seeing a police car
But I’m not giving in an inch to fear
‘Cause I promised myself this year
I feel like I owe it to someone
Surely that tweet should have read:
‘A decade ago, we created Spotify so that we could make money by offering artists’ music for free and eventually decided that, to keep going, we’d have to offer them as little money as we could, while plastering advertising all over our customer’s screens (unless they used an ad-blocker)’
The Truth is like a lion.
You don’t have to defend it.
Let it loose, it will defend itself.
St. Augustine
https://mobile.twitter.com/thechiefnerd/status/1486168753629011973
If I was Rogan I’d push it further, get thrown off, then challenge the break of contract in court. Or take the money and run
All he’d have to do is get David Icke on…..
Could we put a trigger warning on the Guardian, say?
Normal people may be adversely affected by content. There’s been a lot of conversation about misinformation in the Guardian on just about every topic. We’ve heard the criticism and we’re implementing changes to help normal people combat this.
Does Spotify really think we’re that dumb?? They need to man-up and and tell the weak-feebled such as Neil Young to grow a backbone. Can Ek even define and classify ‘misinformation’?
So, after the shredding of the Nuremberg Code (and following international agreements on forced medical experimentation) we are now back into book burning, othering people à la Pastor Martin Niemöller, and supporting an overtly fascist country to provoke a war in Europe.
And let us remember who continued to finance the German war machine until 1941.
Is it now time to tell the Yanks to eff off and take their geopolitical paradigms with them?
from the BBC
“US broadcaster Rogan apologised to the company and vowed to do better.”
“I’m not mad at Neil Young, I’m a huge Neil Young fan,” he said, noting his admiration for Mitchell’s music as well.”
First sign of criticism and he buckles like a broken deck chair.
Joe should have apologised for failing to invite the world renowned covid expert Neil Young on his show.
Joe should have extended an immediate invite and explained that he would be more than happy to take correction from the learned Neil, but that he might have some questions for the sake of clarification for his low IQ listeners.
Hopefully they put “Warning: as a certified snowflake you may be triggered by hearing truth from a person you don’t like.”