Joe Rogan’s face has put Spotify in a hard place. In some episodes of his popular podcast, anti-coronavirus vaccine comments and racial slurs are forcing streaming services to weigh hard choices.
Spotify must decide where it stands on the basis of misinformation about race relations and vaccines in a society where there is a high sensitivity to both issues. Then there are business decisions about what to do with Rogan’s $ 100 million podcast, which threatens the bottom line, but it’s a key part of the company’s strategy to become a one-stop shop for audio.
Neither the streaming service nor Rogan was talking on Sunday. But experts say Spotify’s management will have to decide whether to sever ties with Rogan, as it could incline more musicians to their work in protest. Or is there some middle ground that may be acceptable to artists and customers?
Whatever decision emerges in a growing polarized country will not sit well on one side or the other.
Adia Harvey Wingfield, a professor of sociology at Washington University in St. Louis, says that in the race, choosing to keep Rogan and send a message is to show that society has awakened too much or that Spotify has adapted more to a multinational society.
If Spotify says we can’t exclude him. He has the right to say what he wants, “said David Cook, chief of The Christian Science Monitor’s Washington bureau.
John Wehbe, a professor at Northeastern University and an emerging technology expert, said the streaming site would also have to decide whether to allow offensive words elsewhere in his app, which contains songs with racist, gay and anti-immigrant messages.
There are some real self-tests beyond Joe, Wehbe said. It’s a great way to get acquainted (gain, obtain) with present-day techniques that came from the window, the key to the entertainment and streaming platform. “
Eric Gordon, a professor of business and law at the University of Michigan, says the bottom line question for Spotify should be quite simple. He said the conservative Rogan stood in contrast to much more liberal musicians who made up the bulk of Spotify’s profits.
They can’t blow up artists. Artists create Spotify, Gordon said. They have to deal with Rogan, let him go to a house that will be compatible with him. And everyone will be fine.
Having Rogan in Spotify means having a political party as Donald Trump’s presidential candidate and Liberal Elizabeth Warren as vice-president. It’s not going to work, Gordon said.
The Spotify report has 406 million active monthly users, which is about 20% more than last year, and the increase in ads is mainly due to podcasting. According to Midia Research, the company accounted for 31% of the 524 million music streaming subscriptions worldwide in the second quarter of 2021, more than double that of second-ranked Apple Music.
Rogan’s public outcry began on January 24 when composer Neil Young asked him to remove his music because Rogan was promoting skepticism about the Covid-19 vaccine. Other artists, including Johnny Mitchell and Roxanne Gay, followed suit.
Verification-sorting intensified when a video collection appeared last week. The Grammy-winning artist posted this on her Instagram using the hashtag India.Arie #DeleteSpotify.
The company has not yet addressed the irony in public, but Spotify recently removed dozens of episodes of the podcast.
Spotify, which reportedly paid more than $ 100 million to license the Rogans podcast, previously stated that it would soon add a warning to all podcasts that would discuss COVID-19, from listeners scientists and public health experts to realistic, up-to-date information. Will instruct.
They take this money made from streaming, and they give this guy $ 100 million, but they give it like .003% of our penny, writes Ari. I don’t want to generate the money I pay.
Rogan apologized on Saturday, saying the slurs were the saddest and most embarrassing thing he had to address and that he had not used the word n for years.
As Spotify CEO and co-founder Daniel One said last week, before racial slurs resurface, it’s important to me that we don’t take the position of being content censored.
One told the Wall Street Journal last week that he had taken responsibility for being too slow to respond to criticism over vaccine misinformation. It took the company five days for Yang to respond publicly.
It has become clear to me that we have an obligation to do more to provide a balance and access to widely accepted information from the medical and scientific communities that is guiding us in this unprecedented time, ”the statement continued.
Rogan is a bizarre mix of shock-jockeys and hosts who lead discussions on public policy, art and culture, with Wehbe describing his brand as a “conservative brother America.”
His comments were clearly racist, Wehbe said, but he hoped Rogan would see this as an opportunity to discuss race and vaccine issues in future episodes. His audience might not otherwise hear the discussion, Wehbe said.
I think it’s important to bring that kind of audience together, ”he said. He can say something that I think can move the needle.
Wingfield suspects that Spotify could keep Rogan, but he said the controversy could be positive if it starts to change the discussion of racial stereotypes.
I think if Joe Rogan learns from this experience and becomes a driving voice for that conversation, it can be really valuable, he said. But I want to emphasize again that if this is a very big one, and I do not know if it will come.
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