Joe Rogan controversy a key barometer of media freedom
| Published date | 10 February 2022 |
| Author | Philippa Larkin philippa.larkin@inl.co.za |
| Publication title | Cape Argus (Cape Town, South Africa) |
The outcome of this controversy is absolutely critical to media freedom’s path ahead as the democratic world, and corporations, hammer out a new type of social contract, which welds traditional and new media formats into an accountable framework that bolsters trust in information.
On February 7, Park (@YeonmiParkNK) tweeted: “First they came for the Right Wing Conservative commentators. Then they came for the sitting President. Then they came for the biggest podcaster @joerogan who was the least biased. Soon they are coming for All OF US who don’t comply. Wake up, while time remains to fight back.”
Park was referencing a famous poem, written in 1946, titled, First They Came, by Pastor Martin Niemöller, who was best known for his opposition to the Nazi regime during the late 1930s, which touched on how he felt that Germans had been complicit through their silence in the Holocaust.
It all began last month when 270 doctors, physicians, and science educators signed an open letter calling on Spotify, a Swedish audio streaming and media services provider, to take action against misinformation on the platform, contained in two of Rogan’s interviews relating to COVID-19 and vaccines.
Spotify – with more than 406 million monthly active users, including 180 million paying subscribers, as of December 2021 – paid a reported $100 million (R1.55 billion) in 2020 for an exclusive licensing deal with Rogan.
Shortly after the doctors’ call to action, rocker Neil Young delivered an ultimatum to Spotify demanding that it take action against COVID-19 misinformation on Rogan’s podcast or remove his music from its service. Other musicians on the platform soon followed suit.
This placed Spotify’s chief executive, Daniel Ek, in the hot seat and put a band-aid on the discontent, promising to put a “content advisory” on “any podcast episode that included a discussion about COVID-19”.
Ek grew hot under the collar after the “N” word was thrown into the mix. And to protect his company’s corporate reputation and profits, held talks with Rogan and began removing certain of Rogan’s more controversial podcast episodes.
In a letter to Spotify employees, Ek said he did “not believe that silencing Joe is the answer”.
Ek said: “I want to remind everyone of our mission. We want to get to 50 million creators and a billion users. And to...
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