Toby has a piece in the Spectator today on why Neil Young was wrong to pick a fight with Spotify over Joe Rogan daring to interview two medical experts who have expressed concerns about the coronavirus vaccines.
Thankfully, Toby says, almost no one has rallied to Young’s banner – though don’t go thinking Spotify is some principled champion of free speech.
When Neil Young issued his threat to Spotify – get rid of Joe Rogan’s podcast or remove my music from your platform – he was probably hoping a chorus of other musical artists would weigh in behind him. After all, Spotify paid a reported $100 million to Rogan for the exclusive rights to host his podcast and, given that each episode attracts 11 million listeners, it must be quite a money spinner for the music streaming service. I’m sure Young’s music does alright on Spotify, but from a purely commercial point of view it was a no-brainer.
Thankfully, only Joni Mitchell seems to have joined Young’s boycott so far, and that’s the most significant thing about this episode, not Spotify’s decision to side with Rogan. Some commentators are hailing Spotify for its principled stance, but its track record on free speech isn’t great. Plenty of controversial podcasters have been removed from the platform and when Rogan transferred his back catalogue to the service many of his more controversial episodes were not made available at the company’s insistence.
Perhaps the lack of support from other musicians is because Neil Young has chosen an odd hill to die on, Toby suggests.
Young took the stance he did because he believes Rogan is ‘spreading fake information about vaccines’, according to a now deleted letter. This, he said, is ‘causing death’ by prompting some people not to get vaccinated or boosted. What appears to have pushed Young over the edge was Rogan’s decision to interview two prominent vaccine sceptics, Dr Robert Malone and Dr Peter McCullough. But this is an odd hill to die on. As Vinay Prasad, an Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistic, pointed out in a piece for UnHerd:“‘Rogan is not a scientist, and, like everyone else, he has his biases. But he is open-minded, sceptical, and his podcast is an important forum for debate and dialogue. It is not enough, moreover, to simply dismiss Malone and McCullough as conspiracy theorists. They are controversial and polarising figures, but they do have real credentials. Malone is a physician who has worked in molecular biology and drug development for decades, while McCullough was, until recently, an academic cardiologist and researcher.”
Toby goes on to make a plea for free speech on the grounds that people who are wrong on some things are often right on others, and besides, “sunlight is the best disinfectant”.
Worth reading in full, naturally.
Stop Press: In a sign of how seriously other musicians are taking the boycott, James Blunt has jokingly threatened to release new music if Spotify doesn’t remove Joe Rogan’s podcast.
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