Despite the very limited extent of the wrinklies’ boycott of Spotify over podcaster Joe Rogan’s alleged vaccine ‘misinformation’, Rogan has apologised for “pissing off” Spotify and said he will “balance out these more controversial viewpoints”. It comes after the streaming service imposed new warnings and rules on content covering the pandemic. The Telegraph has more – though reader be warned this article itself (by unnamed ‘foreign staff’) is somewhat misleading (my comments added in line).
Popular U.S. podcaster Joe Rogan has apologised amid a backlash against COVID-19 misinformation [erm, this should be alleged misinformation – Spotify has said Rogan’s content does not breach its new rules] in his programme, as hosting platform Spotify said it would add a “content advisory” to any episode with discussion of the coronavirus.
Rogan, a prominent vaccine sceptic, has stirred controversy with his views on the pandemic and on vaccines and government mandates to control the spread of the virus aired on his top-rated podcast, the Joe Rogan Experience.
In a 10-minute Instagram video post on Sunday evening, he apologised to Spotify for the backlash but defended inviting contentious guests.
“If I pissed you off, I’m sorry,” Rogan said. “I will do my best to try to balance out these more controversial viewpoints with other people’s perspectives so we can maybe find a better point of view.”
Singer-songwriters Neil Young and Joni Mitchell announced last week that they were removing their music from Spotify in protest at coronavirus misinformation broadcast on the platform.Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, have also expressed their concern to Spotify about COVID-19 misinformation but will continue to work with the company, a spokesperson for their Archewell foundation said on Sunday.
Some 270 scientists and medical professionals have also written to Spotify urging the company to prevent Rogan from spreading falsehoods [Actually, of the 270 signatories of the letter referred to, many were not scientists or medics].Rogan signed a £75m deal with Spotify in 2020 and has an estimated 11 million listeners per episode is, by that measurement, far more popular than any news anchor in the country. [Did a word get left out of that sentence?]
The musclebound UFC commentator says he is not an anti-vaxxer, but he has used his platform to push, and host guests who push, a multitude of baseless ‘theories’ about the pandemic. [This is a smear]
These include the assertion that young and healthy people do not need the vaccine [This is a view shared to varying degrees by, for example, the JCVI and the Swedish health authorities], the idea that “mass formation psychosis” is responsible for people believing in the efficacy of vaccines [The fact that people believe vaccines stop infection and transmission despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary needs some psychological explanation] and that hospitals are financially incentivised to falsely diagnose COVID-19 deaths [That hospitals receive more money for Covid patients was a claim made by Elon Musk on Rogan’s show based on a claim made by U.S. Senator Scott Jensen; it was fact-checked by mainstream outlets and confirmed to be true].
At the time of writing, the top-rated comment by Jonny Chinchen puts it well:
DT please show some professional editorial behaviour!
1) This feels copied and pasted from another news agency.
2) Rogan himself has spread no “misinformation”. If he has, you need to quote it and prove it is misinformation.
3) You are printing misinformation yourselves. The 270 signatories of the petition against Rogan are not all “scientists and medical professionals”. I just looked at the list of signees myself and some were listed as bloggers and podcasters, journalists or students.
4) Re: above – this article is lazy and misinformative journalism. Your standards as a legacy news provider are slipping, this would be shocking if it weren’t already a trend at the DT.
Worth reading in full (well, kind of).
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to the Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
I suspect that the attack on Rogan, the infamous letter and the old folks like Young, Mitchel and Nash falling for it, has been orchestrated behind the scenes by the pharmaceutical industry. The lead letter author worked for pharma PR. Among the others, Dr Eric Burnett has pushed the Pfizer vaccine on Twitter, Prof. Glen Pyle has dismissed vaccine caused myocarditis concerns, and Harvard’s Prof John Brownstein has been all over the media pushing the Pfizer vaccine.
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
The only mistake Joe made was to apologise! He has been open-minded on most subjects from the start, including “vaccination”. Ironic that old hippies have had a hissy fit and demanded censorship, shutdowns and bans. Keep on truckin’, Joe. And truck Fudeau!
It’s not called the alternative media for nothing. We can get the official line on everything from the mainstream propagandists. We look to independent news sources to restore the balance – which in the case of COVID is mission impossible even with a hundred Joe Rogan shows, so biased and comprehensive is the corporate-controlled legacy media’s global coverage.
Alternative media proprietors, and their dissident ‘stars’ such as said Joe, need to stand together against censorship – not buckle and wave the white flag at the first whiff of shot and shell.
Once the freedom to broadcast the truth has been surrendered, the slide into totalitarianism will be unstoppable.
How do you balance out the evidence of increased death and illness from the jabs without being a lying, scumbag shill?
Follow the money. . .
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.
Bad move. Maybe he’s trying to look conciliatory, but it looks like weakness.
I’m thinking of cancelling my subscription to Spotify. Not because of Joe Rogan but because of their weak, money is everything stance. I don’t care if they have pro vax, pro lockdown, pro fear brigade shows. I do care that they are trying to appease fascists that want to stop free speech & opinion of experts.
I am disappointed if Rogan is apologetic though.
I wonder how many subscribers he will lose as a result of that decision.
Rogan has sold out, as there nothing to apologise for.
Yep.
Just listened to the Joe Rogan video talking about this, but haven’t read the telegraph article.
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CZYQ_nDJi6G/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading
Thought he spoke very well and with a lot of humility.
Down on his knees for the usual suspects. Can you imagine a covid authoritarian making the same concession? all a scam to promote conformity and self censorship. What a complete fraud.
This is part of the war.
They took a hit on one of ours. And to be fair, he didn’t take the hit well.
In fact his apology makes it the hit. The authoritarians can hold his comments up as a scalp.
To their own, it reassures them that the authority still rules.
To us, it serves to intimidate. The message: ‘Look at what we did to your precious podcast host. The most powerful independent media personality. We can take anyone we want down.’
It’s a war and it goes on. Hopefully Rogan can pick himself up and continue being independent. Perhaps he’s irredeemably ‘wounded’. We shall see.
A critical remark: It’s perfectly ok to condemn Young (and presumably, Mitchell as well) for the view that (precautionary) beneficial censorship (by people of his/ her own age, presumably) is called for to prevent young people from being misled into forming wrong opinions. But making snide remarks about their age (wrinklies) is equally uncalled for.
Rogan should just invite the likes of Fauci or Ferguson or Whitty to debate with Malone or McCullough or Kory and then empty chair them when they don’t show up (which they won’t).
The hypocrisy of brand covidians demanding airtime because their views are not being heard enough!
I’ve not listened to his latest yet, but if he did apologize I’m disappointed… It’s clear too anybody with a functioning brain cell, that ALL media, legacy or new, is fundamentally bought and paid for by bad actors with nefarious intentions. The platforms that can be used by REAL scientists to posit an alternative narrative have been limited to say the least in the last two year’s. Any way, we can a least thank Rogan for bringing to the attention of potentially billions of people, the views of McCullough and Malone, two world renowned scientists who should be given a global platform as a matter of cause!
and some of them are, literally, actors. In a way it’s funny
Arghhhhh! Why apologise?
The Soros-Gates-Schwab Blob has reached out and fingered him!
With a $100 million investment in Joe the Toe no way will he have free speech and free association it’s scripted and controlled.
In which case he wouldn’t have been allowed to have McCulloch and Malone on in the first place.
I’d love him to have some of the ‘other side’ on – c’mon Fauci, Whitty, Collins, et al. Rogan would make them squirm and his readiness to say that he’ll have others on is, I think, based on his confidence that they, too, by being shown up for the frauds / liars they are, would advance the case of the sceptics.
Maybe it’s me but I quite like this. Not the article of course which is the usual standard of journalism ie none we have all had to suffer recently
But the idea of the JRE podcast offering air time to the other side of the argument is fabulous as it hasn’t been done before as those who aren’t fully onboard with the nonsense have been deplatformed
Get both sides on at the same time and let the fireworks commence. Have a proper 3 hour debate and watch the pro Covid bunch crumble when every point they make is torn apart point by point by someone who knows what they are talking about
I’d say it would rival Rohan’s beloved MMA but I think it would be like watching Mike Tyson vs Barry McGuigan.
id pay to watch it though and think of the headlines
Mike Tyson v Barry Davies surely?
Barry “Beijing” Gardiner, surely?
He should just publicly invite the other side -we all know who they are – and when they decline (run scared) then publicly announce they have declined his invitation.
He can’t force people into the show and people would wonder why the most popular podcast in the world was turned down by the ‘experts’….
He should invite them, ridicule them and crush them to pulp!
JRE has always done this. But the pro-vaxxers aren’t going to come on and debate with Malone of the like. They know full well the science is not with them.
Whinge and Ginge are already on the Spotify payroll; I am sure they would be happy to debate misinformation with Mike Yeadon and Peter McCullough (leave Robert Malone to deal with the old drug taking folk/rocker in a separate episode).
Slightly off topic…
Boris Johnson gets report about lockdown-breaking parties
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/boris-johnson-gets-report-about-lockdown-breaking-parties-01643632945?mod=bnbh
So …has he finally found out why he went to the party(ies) he didn’t know were parties and ate the cake he didn’t know was a cake while drinking the booze that wasn’t there in the fridge he didn’t know was bought by him for the very purpose by people he didn’t know, who worked for him!
All this taking place during the Lockdowns he didn’t know about which imposed rules on people socialising he hadn’t heard of, even though he approved them all.
“Off with his head! ” ( said the Queen of Hearts).
She has a point!
Give the guy a break – he’s had a lot on his plate lately.
Cake.
And we have a winner folks.
And probably more of his favourite cheese. That’s why he’s still a Bunter.
Never apologise to these people Joe, you owe them nothing. Now that you have, they smell blood in the water and they will be relentless. You shouldn’t have done it and most certainly shouldn’t have blown smoke up the arse of Neil Young & Joni Mitchell at the end of your Instagram video.
Exactly. To think that pricking your finger will keep the sharks at bay is …. somewhat optimistic?
The media just do as they are told. The repeated phrases smack of a coordinated messaging campaign – and we know there is exactly that. The “Trusted news Initiative” decides what the media should say and how they should say it. Those who our outside the cabal naturally hate anyone who says differently.
I’ll be accused of spreading conspiracy theories, I do not care, these are facts. Once you see the patterns you cannot unsee them. Note, for example, three days ago the media stopped naming Robert Malone as the offending guest, they now say it was an individual who was banned by Twitter for disinformation. The Telegraph, above, follows the same line with this wheedling smears by association written in such a way they probably think they cannot be sued. But WHO is pulling all these strings?
The Craven Media are being re-grouped by their minders for a counter offensive against the “Vaccine Horror Truth” now spilling out all over the world.
Easy solution – just don’t, read look or listen and they die. All it requires is just a little will-power.
They also didn’t mention (by name) ivermectin, only ‘an anti-parasitic drug’. The US NIH meanwhile are stating that ivermectin has no anti-viral properties. What utter lies! The Journal of Antibiotics in a paper entitled Ivermectin: a systematic review from antiviral effects to COVID-19 complementary regimen states
Several studies reported antiviral effects of ivermectin on RNA viruses such as Zika, dengue, yellow fever, West Nile, Hendra, Newcastle, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, chikungunya, Semliki Forest, Sindbis, Avian influenza A, Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome, Human immunodeficiency virus type 1, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. Furthermore, there are some studies showing antiviral effects of ivermectin against DNA viruses such as Equine herpes type 1, BK polyomavirus, pseudorabies, porcine circovirus 2, and bovine herpesvirus 1. Ivermectin plays a role in several biological mechanisms, therefore it could serve as a potential candidate in the treatment of a wide range of viruses including COVID-19 as well as other types of positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses. In vivo studies of animal models revealed a broad range of antiviral effects of ivermectin.
An I would add, in silico studies (using powerful modelling of drugs now used to discover and refine suitable candidate drugs against diseases). The same journal… Read more »
Brilliant find. Although I had to look up the illness ‘Newcastle’ as I’ve never heard of it.
He has nothing to apologise for.
But in apologising, he effectively ‘confirms’ his ‘guilt’, and the accusers feel even more ‘right’.
Why, oh why, is it that we must constantly be made to be sorry for nothing?
“Your standards as a legacy news provider are slipping”
Slipped a long time ago hence why I didn’t renew my subscription in January. Still waiting for a response from the editor as to why when I corrected some misinformation in an article (reproduced press release by Zoe) my response was marked as misinformation.
What do these sad sacks think is “Covid misinformation”? Anything they choose not to believe? Anything that goes against the truth they chose? One thing has been blindingly clear over the last two years: some people choose their truth like they choose a pair of trainers or a bling bracelet. It doesn’t have to be true, it has to be shiny, acceptable to them and plausible in a non-factual way.
Exellent.
Preventing open discussion about these new gene therapy vaccines and the traditional types of vaccines is vital.
Over recent years more and more people have been listening to those that are critical/sceptical of vaccinology and coming to the conclusion that the critics/sceptics are correct.
If the average person knew how shoddy vaccine safety testing is in general, how many known toxins are found in a great many vaccines and how many injuries and deaths are caused by vaccines people wouldn’t go anywhere near them.
I’m coming to this point of view. I think some vaccines *might* be good & worthwhile, but the shoddy studies undertaken make it very difficult to tell.