14 times worse than Taylor Swift, despite having 3 times the career span and back catalogue? That's about what (90s Danish-Norwegian euro-pop act) Aqua get on Spotify (and tons of other acts besides, even one-hit wonders).
A 60's and 70's folk singer vs. Taylor Swift, a modern mega-artist that almost every young person knows the name of? Yeah, 14x sounds pretty darn fine to me.
You can count me in that circle. I have recently, finally, gotten around to listening to her late 70s albums Hejira and Mingus, and plan to continue through her later albums. Genius isn't dictated by marketing and pop radio.
This is not the case. Old music does good business. This has been a popular topic recently in the media e.g. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/old-music-killing-new-music/621339/
I didn't know who she is and I'm in my early 40's. I recognized the music when I looked her up though, I've heard some of it before of course, just didn't know the name.
Who is censoring anyone? Both Neil Young and Joni Mitchell are exercising their freedom to associate with who they like, and expressing the terms by which they will associate with businesses like Spotify.
I have always found it very telling how people who support free speech change their tune when they stand to lose their platform and audience because other people on those platforms do not wish to associate themselves with them. Would you prefer if artists like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell were forced to keep their content on Spotify even though they don’t agree with their association with Joe Rogan at the present time? - or if not, then what exactly is the problem?
Freedom of speech and freedom of association are two sides of the same street. If Joe Rogan is free to say whatever foolish nonsense he wants, as I believe he generally is if he’s not actively harming anyone, then Neil Young and Joni Mitchell (and others) are free to pull their content from the same platform to protest the platform bankrolling him. You should have freedom of speech, but there is no such thing as freedom of a platform for it - if people don’t want to hear it or be associated with it, they don’t have to, and they can withdraw their support (financial, content, etc.) of such platforms.
Also - it’s Rockin’ In The Free World, and the song is a biting and cynical satire. I’m not sure how you’re drawing a line between these two things unless you haven’t heard the lyrics before.
Nope, that is perfectly fine. If I work for you, and you decide to contract with the military, I will walk away from the job. Acceptable by any measure. This situation is largely the same.
Why is it unethical? Again, the alternative here is that both Young and Mitchell are forced to maintain an association with Spotify against their will, or change their opinion on Rogan (an opinion which many people share and hold to be correct, regardless of whether they believe Rogan should be able to express himself and allow his guests to express themselves in the way he does - and many also do believe he should). Do you consider any of these things to be more just outcomes? No one is being forced to do anything here, there are just two people laying out the conditions under which they continue their relationship with a third party.
Neither Young nor Mitchell have actually made any demands here, they have simply stated that they will not continue their relationship with Spotify while they maintain their present relationship with Joe Rogan. Many things can give here - Spotify could drop Rogan, or detail the conditions under which they maintain their relationship, or nothing might happen and Rogan stays on Spotify while Young and Mitchell do not.
I don’t know or care about the law here, unless someone starts getting litigious then it’s really all naval gazing nonsense - like you said, you are not a lawyer, so I’m not going to entertain your theories on how this might be illegal. This is purely a matter of values - I value freedom of speech, and I also value people being able to freely associate with who they like, and that includes saying to someone that they will not associate with them while they maintain an association with someone else.
The principled way to do this is “I’m leaving indefinitely because I don’t approve of your editorial priorities,” not single out one guy and try to bribe or extort the company into breaking their commitments with him. Only customers en masse should be able to demand a change like this, because the company’s duty is to customers rather than competing vendors.
It’s completely wild to me that anything other than what you’ve said here would be a common view.
Spotify is totally free to bankroll Joe Rogan. Others are equally free to feel that this is a bad decision, to criticise it, and to withdraw support in the form of subscriptions or platform participation because they don’t want to contribute to it. Support for freedom of speech does not come with a requirement to support or share a platform with any particular example of speech.
Spotify can make a decision about what has more value to them in the long term. Subscribers and content producers can decide if funding and promoting Rogan is a dealbreaker for them. Thats’s all this comes down to - a business decision.
Personally the real crime here is that this has become an issue at all - thanks to Spotify’s frankly desperate attempt to become something other than a music streaming service. I have at no point been interested in Spotify providing podcasts; it’s already an active anti-feature for me, so “now we give some of your subscription to this asshole!!” isn't going to do much than tip me further in the direction of moving to another service.
This is exactly the way I feel. The best way I heard this described just today was by Anthony Fantano on his Twitch stream, where he said that a music streaming service just shouldn’t be in the news this much. That is spot on in my opinion - too much controversy for nothing.
I have never listened to podcasts on Spotify and never will, I use the podcasts app for this and it works quite well for me. I would have been very happy for Spotify to be a music streaming service with a killer app and better support for artists (hell I’d even pay another $5 a month for this, I tried Tidal as I think they pay artists well but I found their app to just not be as good as Spotify’s). As it stands, Joe Rogan makes millions of dollars from his deal with Spotify, while most artists I listen to will probably make pocket money - certainly not nearly enough to make a living, especially during a pandemic when touring is so difficult.
Ultimately I think Joe Rogan isn’t going anywhere unless he sees the writing on the wall and decides to take his millions and build his own platform. Frankly, it means nothing to me - I think it would be great if he stopped bringing on guests who routinely lie about the pandemic, but I don’t listen to his podcast so I just don’t care enough to get up in arms about it. But I absolutely reject the idea that this is censorship and I call it out when I can - deplatforming isn’t censorship, and he isn’t even being deplatformed.
This however is a business dispute. Zappa vs Gore, as well as the rest of the sick legacy of PMRC, was absolutely an issue of government overreach and real censorship. If this particular case should ever require a senate hearing then I’ll be shocked.
(Luckily for those of us growing up around this time, the ‘Parental Advisory’ sticker basically became a label of good taste - if it’s got that sticker, it might ge worth listening to.)
> Spotify is totally free to bankroll Joe Rogan. Others are equally free to feel that this is a bad decision, to criticise it, and to withdraw support in the form of subscriptions or platform participation because they don’t want to contribute to it. Support for freedom of speech does not come with a requirement to support or share a platform with any particular example of speech.
People understand distrinction between 'using your freedom to pursue your happiness' and 'using your freedom in order to punish someone'. Some action can be both 'exercising your liberty to free association' and 'using economic power to oppress others'.
I don't think anyone is saying Neil Young or Joni Mitchell shouldn't be allowed to do this.
In fact most people on Rogan's side are cheering them on to get their music removed.
People are just saying they are hysterical and childish, and it's ironic how these people were the icons of counter culture 30-40 years ago and now are doing the bidding of the powerful.
People generally don't like hypocrites, and like to point out hypocrisy. That's all.
> I don't think anyone is saying Neil Young or Joni Mitchell shouldn't be allowed to do this.
The GP of your post says that this censorship. Another person who replied to me earlier said that this is immoral and possibly illegal. So no, there are in fact some people who are saying that Young and Mitchell either should not do this or should not be allowed to do this.
> doing the bidding of the powerful.
What a silly idea. There is nothing ironic, hysterical, or childish about people who stood against _real_ oppression (the struggles of the Civil Rights movement, conscription into a liar’s war in Vietnam) refusing to associate 50 years later with a business which provides a platform to people telling tales about _fake_ oppression (antivax sentiment, public health measures). Humour me and tell me more about the powerful figures they are doing the bidding of.
It’s entirely on you if you think there is any hypocrisy here. Maybe you just don’t understand what values were espoused by (some) people in the 60s counter culture. There are counter cultures and counter cultures, and while the counter culture of today in the USA might be simple contrarianism, the same cannot be said for that of the 60s, and there is no straight line from one to the other.
> Humour me and tell me more about the powerful figures they are doing the bidding of.
Let me give you a quote, you can guess who said it. Hint, he also had 3 different views on masks depending on what suited him:
“ When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent. Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, “I can nudge this up a bit,” so I went to 80, 85.”
It takes a special type of ignorance of human nature and history to think that questioning authority is not always something that is important, whether you agree with it or not. I have a lot more respect for liberals like glen greenwald to stand up to authority whoever they are, rather than sing about it for 30 years and then try and shut up someone who’s doing it currently.
Btw there’s nothing childish about the 70s counter culture, good for them at the time. What they are doing now is childish and hypocritical.
As for questioning authority: the notion that COVID is more harmful to the elderly than the young is generally true - but then a line is drawn through some alchemy from this to the notion that COVID is not dangerous for most young people, which regardless of how completely dubious a statement it is, still leads to a host of bad public outcomes.
We know that vaccines reduce the incidence of infection and the the severity of infection, and also that masks effectively reduce the incidence of infection. There is a popular sentiment that these things are either generally wrong (or lies), or that they should only apply to people with underlying health conditions making them more susceptible to infection. I don’t agree with the people who claim the latter, but I can’t and wouldn’t say they are lying or being dishonest - it’s a perfectly valid opinion to hold (and after all, it’s not illegal or immoral to be wrong :-) ). It’s the former case which is much more concerning, when people deny or contort the facts to suit their own agenda.
The concerns that people like Neil Young have is that bogus science from bogus professionals is being peddled to large audiences of platforms they share. It is their right to withdraw such association and, if they desire, to give an explanation for doing so. You have to really stretch the issue here to culture-war proportions to make this a matter of pro-government censorship etc.
Here we have someone in a position of authority literally admitting to lying or adjusting figures based on public sentimen.
That is not science. That is politics, and people are literally saying things Fauci and others say about the pandemic are unquestionable. Yet this guy is literally admitting to not telling the truth to manipulate the public.
If I were you I would at least question why you didn’t know about this, and whether trusting public health officials and politicians (on any side) is the truthful and scientific way to live. And why these people want to censor, if they are so right.
Your first link appears to be the mouthpiece for Matt Taibbi. I don’t know anything about him, and I appreciate independent investigative journalism, but I hope you expose yourself to more than his work. His substack clearly has an editorial stance towards COVID-19, which I think is generally a good indicator of a non-neutral position on the issue - maybe not ‘bias’ (sometimes you have a particular stance because you have assessed the facts and are generally correct), but if you question authority you should also question the veracity of the statements your independent sources make, especially in this day and age of social media grifters. I haven’t read Greenwald’s work for a long time, for no particular reason.
I really can’t account for Fauci’s statement here - it doesn’t look very good from what I can see, but the context is buried in a NYT article which is behind a paywall for me. Still, it doesn’t directly inform my position here - you can be broadly in favour of particular government policies without being all around the implementation. I think that liberal veneration of Fauci has elevated him to this position where he’s considered a saint for moderates, which is gross - he’s a public health official, nothing more and nothing less; the obsession with a public hero of the people, especially one who is non-elected, is just wrong, and makes it especially awkward when people inevitably find out that they are imperfect people and imperfect at their job. That being said, I think Trump’s politicisation of the office of a particular public servant was much more significant and repulsive.
You've basically admitted fauci has god like unquestionable status, and is lying, yet you still agree with people trying to censor the only large public figure talking to people questioning authority (note he also interviewed CNNs health expert, so both sides, which i listened to and agreed to on many points btw).
Joe Rohan routinely invites frauds onto his program to lie about COVID-19. Whatever Fauci says is irrelevant here - you’re the one who brought him up, I couldn’t care less.
Rest your case, we’re clearly not going to see eye to eye.
It is so bizarre to believe we have epistemological certainty in what we currently know that anyone should be shut up about anything.
It is literally the feature of our system that lays the golden eggs that there is no such thing as a heretical thought.
Nonsense like qanon are the waste products of 100% open mindedness but you can't have it both ways. You will just end up with endless super hero movies in all realms of thought. A process that is already well under way.
It wasn’t my intention to lump these two things together and treat them as one in the same. I know that legality and morality are two entirely separate concepts. I just happen to believe he is acting morally within the bounds of law, while others believe he is acting immorally and possibly also illegally. Though I think most of us would agree that ultimately what is most important is the morality of the issue - if the law contradicts this, the law is wrong.
> It’s entirely on you if you think there is any hypocrisy here
I like Neil Young, and I don’t care what he chooses to do with his music. Pull it from Spotify, it’s going to hurt him financially more than hurt his fans, we have already purchased his music. If I can’t stream it, no biggie. If I really want to listen to NY, I’ll dust off the vinyl.
I am sure he has a sincerely held belief that to him that allows him to carve out an authoritarian pro-government exception that satisfies his own moral values. He has done it on a couple of songs.
However, I personally feel like a person who made his fame on anti-authoritarian, free speech, anti-government themes in his art should not be surprised at people drawing a conclusion that he is a hypocrite when he takes a public position that is pro-authoritarian, pro-government, and requesting corporate suppression of another person’s opinion.
You and other people have said that he is being pro-government, pro-authoritarian, doing the bidding of the powerful, etc. - without qualification. But I just don’t see what exactly taking an active stance against misinformation concerning COVID is any of these things. What am I missing here?
Basically he is taking the official US government informational position and the government has gone as far as trying to mandate and force their will regarding the topic. Therefore it has a political and also a corporatist connotation in that there a few companies making billions on the number of vaccines that are distributed and some of those companies despite government help in fast tracking and help financing the development, are holding on to the IP.
Like I said…I don’t care what he does with his art, or whatever his opinion may be on a given subject, but he is literally known for activism and protest…and a focus on freedom, freedom of speech (Literally had a tour called “The Freedom of Speech Tour”), and anti-corporatism. In this case it appears that he attempted to financially force a corporation to silence someone who’s ideas and speech he didn’t like. It’s at the very least thematically out of character for him, and a bit contrary to one of the reasons I was a fan.
In this respect the ‘US government informational position’ appears to be substantially correct. It really makes counter cultural sentiments seem silly if the _cannot_ come to the same conclusions about public health outcomes as government officials lest they be considered pro-government, doesn’t it? Isn’t it more charitable to both Young and Mitchell, as well as many others who might have plenty of grievances with government policy in many areas, to allow the thought that their agreement with a particular policy or policies might be a case if a broken clock?
On more specific issues like a handful of companies benefiting financially from the pandemic … I absolutely agree, but dismissing the entire thing out of hand is really throwing the baby out with the bath water.
No one is silencing anyone. Do you really think Joe Rogan will just disappear if he is dropped from Spotify? He has the reach and means to build his own platform if he really wanted to.
> In this respect the ‘US government informational position’ appears to be substantially correct
Perhaps. The conventional wisdom and majority opinion of the US public in 1968 would have had the same opinion of the Vietnam war. If something happens that shows vaccines to have some as yet unknown long term side effect, in 20 years Rogan could be seen as right for his skepticism. We have already seen some recent pushback on masks and lockdown policies…even from folks on the left. Things can change…and fast.
Honestly I don’t think Spotify is going to do anything to piss off Rogan. His demographic is right in their sweet spot and he can’t go away without a huge cost to them. They are better to just ride it out. They bought him because his listeners are loyal, he goes away and lands on Rumble, so does his listeners.
Neil Young tried to censor Joe Rogan by telling Spotify "if you don't kick him off of your platform, then I'm leaving it". Thankfully, Spotify has a spine, so the censorship attempt failed.
Censorship is the suppression of speech. Neither Neil Young nor Joni Mitchell are advocating for this.
‘Extortion’ is a concept in criminal law. Unless Rogan takes them or Spotify to court, it’s entirely moot whether this is extortion - but he would have a tenuous argument, as neither of them have coerced Spotify to do anything.
This isn’t splitting hairs or pedantry. It is simply stating facts. While stating the fact of the matter might not be as trite as the GP of your comment calling it ‘censorship’, it is no less correct.
Extortion:
the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats.
Neil Young made a threat to obtain something - the removal of Joe Rogan from Spotify. The term "extortion" isn't limited to criminal law any more than censorship is limited to government action.
You are indeed splitting hairs and being pedantic. You are more worried about the exact technical wording (vs common usage and connotation) rather than the actual point of the debate.
It's not that these people shouldn't be free to leave this or that platform, it's that they shouldn't want to. It's illiberal to refuse association with someone over a disagreement. It's even worse to try to "deplatform" them. If Joni Mitchell wants to spread some message about public health or vaccinations, she can do so without all these histronics.
Some other things occur to me:
1. It's not like Joe Rogan owes his audience to Spotify.
2. Rogan is not "alt-right". The people who claim that he is are either lying or have adopted a creepy consequentialist mindset wherein someone is "alt-right" if they act in a way that they believe helps the "alt-right". In the latter case, I'm "alt-right" for writing this post.
3. Nothing Rogan says is ever that extreme. Dumb? Sure. But "young, healthy people don't need to get vaccinated" is not extreme. He's a controversial figure because he's a convenient foil for the legacy media.
The problem is that joe rogan is actively undermining the public health mission, not that he is being intellgently critical of vaccines in a healthy way.
The public health mission did an end-run around public discourse. The turbulence caused by that is absolutely the fault of the public health authority.
For a worthy cause people were willing to give their lives. A couple of naysayers can not affect it in any meaningful way. If you can undermine a mission with one measly podcast, that might mean your mission is not in a good place to begin with.
Rogan routinely hosts people with very diverse views. Why wouldn't NY and JM go to Rogan's program and debate him? Why don't YOU go to his program and debate him if you are so certain you have a strong position? If you ask me, I'd say it's very sus, almost like they know they got nothing to say
If enough artists that I listen to leave Spotify, I would begrudgingly cancel my subscription and follow them to a different platform. I hope that doesn’t happen but imagine if Taylor Swift removes herself from spotify again :/
I like this trend of cancel-"cancel culture" activists attempting to compel speech and showing their hand that this was never really about "free speech."
Imagine that a private company bought an entire city. Should we take away people's right to protest in that city, since doing otherwise would be compelling speech by the company?
I like this trend of conservatives discovering the concept of monopoly and advocating anti-trust.
Of course I assume this will only apply to narrow issues such as right wingers being deplatformed. For any other issue they'll go back to a maximalist interpretation of corporate property rights.
> Of course I assume this will only apply to narrow issues such as right wingers being deplatformed.
This argument goes both ways. Don't most people who think Big Tech should be allowed to keep censoring people because of the First Amendment, also think that the First Amendment shouldn't apply to corporations when it comes to Citizens United?
Perhaps but it's a bit more complicated. Citizens United is more about money than speech per se. You can't prevent members of corporations from speaking whatever they want as they are people, but corporations acting as corporations can bankroll political campaigns and push propaganda in ways very few individuals can afford.
It gets even worse when you consider that many corporations are international entities whose interests may not be aligned at all with those of US voters. It's a bit like letting people overseas come into the US and contribute to campaigns and run political ads without limit. In fact it more or less allows this since it's trivial for a foreign individual (or state actor) to use a corporation as a front.
Personally I think Citizens United is a threat to national security. If we were still in the Cold War you'd have the USSR contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to PACs and DC think tanks after laundering it through byzantine financial relationships with US front companies.
I'm just referring to the hypocrisy of right wingers suddenly discovering the issues with monopolies (and narrow oligopolies) when it affects them. You'd be hearing nothing about big tech from the right if they hadn't deplatformed people on the right.
> Should we take away people's right to protest in that city, since doing otherwise would be compelling speech by the company?
I guess, if they didn't like the protesters, they would just say any protesters are on their property and they have the right to eject them or never even let them in. Whilst it was never built (for other reasons) a good example is the Garden Bridge in London. [1]
Despite this looking like publib infra:
"All groups of eight or more visitors would be required to contact the Garden Bridge Trust to request a formal visit to the bridge,” states Lambeth council’s planning report to its committee, which recommends conditional planning. “This policy would not only assist visitor management but also would discourage protest groups from trying to access the bridge.” [2]
Obviously this hasn't been tested at the city level, but the direction of travel ain't great.
"cancel culture" is a dumb euphemism for "consequences for your actions." If you use your soapbox to cause harm to others, people are free do decide how to respond to you and vote with their IP and money.
> "cancel culture" is a dumb euphemism for "consequences for your actions."
If by "actions" you mean "saying things you disagree with" and by "consequences" you mean "trying your hardest to permanently deprive them of their livelihood", then sure.
Being banned from a service is not an attempt to permanently deprive anyone of their livelihood. No one has ever starved to death in the street because their Twitter account was closed.
Cancel culture is more than just getting people banned from Twitter. Consider this example of when the cancel mob got somebody fired, and then when he found another company that was willing to hire him, the mob immediately turned on it: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-20/vmware-st...
And now he's destitute and living under a park bench, a pariah shunned by society?
He seems to be doing just fine. The article you posted doesn't even say his new employers refused to hire him because of "the mob." You're not exactly proving cancel culture to be the life-destroying force you made it out to be earlier.
> The article you posted doesn't even say his new employers refused to hire him because of "the mob."
Sure, maybe his new employer stood up to the cancel mob. But if the cancel mob got what they wanted, then he would be "destitute and living under a park bench, a pariah shunned by society". Their goals don't stop being evil just because they failed to complete them.
> You're not exactly proving cancel culture to be the life-destroying force you made it out to be earlier.
It's not life-destroying because they "just" succeeded at getting him fired from one job, and weren't successful at getting him immediately fired from his new one?
>It's not life-destroying because they "just" succeeded at getting him fired from one job, and weren't successful at getting him immediately fired from his new one?
It's not life-destroying because, as far as I'm aware, no one's life - including his - has ever been destroyed by it.
Your claims and the hyperbole of your rhetoric just aren't borne out by reality.
Cancel culture is rather more specific than that. It's not descriptive of getting arrested for a crime, stubbing your toe for being careless, or getting dumped for mistreating your SO. It's a quite specific response (Twitter mobs, contacting the person's employer, making it a sin to enjoy the offender's art/works) that has a lot more to do with what the responders choose to do than what the offender chose to do.
Cancel culture doesn’t mean people deciding to stop listening to you. It means people actively attacking your reputation so that others are less likely to hear you. It often involves intimidation tactics that mess with your real life, e.g. finding out where you work and creating bad PR that will go away if your employer fires you, or PM’ing your associates to suggest they distance themselves from you publicly if they don’t want to get tangled up in this themselves. Hopefully the people doing this will always make the right decision and only do it to people who really deserve it, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
"cancel culture" talks about people being"cancelled" that is losing their job, scholarship, or other means of livelihood. For saying something, usually innoculous, that had nothing to do with their job or school or livelihood. It is even worse when the thing was said years ago. Consequences should be proportionate to the actions. Not "you should starve to death because I don't like what you said." Which is essentially what cancel culture boils down to.
No, solidarity often refers to actions chosen to magnify the impact of another's chosen action. A solidarity strike isn't (at least normally) where the first union was locked out, but usually one chosen by the second union to add additional pressure to the strike undertaken by the first union.
Older artists do not need to rely on Spotify for their income.
They have an older fan base that still buy the old way.
Neil Young sold 50% of his publishing rights for $150m[0], so he is doing fine without Spotify.
It is much harder for new artists to make a similar stand. They rely too heavily on Spotify for exposure and the small amount of income they get from playlists and automatically being added via the algorithms used.
So it is easier for the older artists to 'make a stand' without much cost to themselves.
Will be interesting to see what happens after Covid. I think the tolerance for the people spreading Qanon nonsense and other conspiracy theories has decreased tremendously.
I'm pretty sure there will be other conspiracy theories, misinformation, or total nonsense that Joe Rogan or his guests will peddle after Covid, as he has been doing before. I'm curious to see how many musicians or podcasters are ready to leave Spotify.
Though Rogan may be spreading false ideas around, he is incomparable to the MSM making up stories and misleading the public in the last decade or so that I've been monitoring. There's a reason Rogan has audience in the millions. People have lost trust after being lied to repeatedly.
I don't have cable, but if you have your opinion you should be the one considering different sources of information.
Just the fact that three years, at least, were devoted to the non existent Russia collusion story, and almost nothing else, should be enough to change the channel.
Music platforms hosting their music have long offered countless songs glorifying misogyny. Why haven't either of them spoken out against misogyny on the platforms they share? Is misogyny ok? There are lots of podcasts on those platforms with all kind of hate for various different demographic groups. Neither of them have spoken out against those podcasts so they must approve of them. The only moral choice for them now is to remove themselves from all music platforms that host misogynic music, which is pretty much every platform. Also any platform that hosts podcasts must be abandoned unless they approve of the content of all of those podcasts.
Perhaps it’s not unreasonable to criticize people on the hills which they pick, Joe Rogans covid stuff is a particularly weird hill to pick over racism or misogyny.
There is vastly more damaging content on spotify than Joe Rogan, some of it is certainly more popular than him.
So is the problem that they aren't acting sooner or that they shouldn't act at all? Because I don't see how an argument that bad stuff is happening invalidates people acting against other bad stuff.
I’m not sure why you think that this would invalidate anything.
I’m just making a simple observation that this hill in particular is a weird one to die on.
And you know, perhaps, if someone chooses to die on this particular hill we can rightfully wonder about their commitment to other, much more meaningful causes?
I don't know, it could just be someone realizing it's a big enough problem to act on? Perhaps they didn't realize how pervasive misogynistic or racist content is on the platform but Joe Rogan got a lot of media attention and this new information caused them to act. Seems reasonable to me.
Edit: I also want to know why you think any of these causes are more meaningful than another. Perhaps it's more meaningful to you, but the world doesn't have to live by your standards. The fact that you might hold different levels of meaning than someone else may answer your question.
> I don't know, it could just be someone realizing it's a big enough problem to act on? Perhaps they didn't realize how pervasive misogynistic or racist content is on the platform but Joe Rogan got a lot of media attention and this new information caused them to act. Seems reasonable to me.
Everything is possible, but I doubt it. How could a musician not be aware of this? Controversy over lyrics isn’t a new thing, even if it has been fading away lately.
> Edit: I also want to know why you think any of these causes are more meaningful than another. Perhaps it's more meaningful to you, but the world doesn't have to live by your standards. The fact that you might hold different levels of meaning than someone else may answer your question.
Your implication that someone talking about nonsensical COVID treatments could be anywhere near as damaging as racism is deeply disturbing.
And don’t forget that this is a podcast that has also featured other comedians like Alex Jones, perhaps you shouldn’t take it seriously?
It seems like you're talking out of both sides of your mouth. You state you aren't trying to invalidate anything, but then you are saying people having different priorities than you are "deeply disturbing." Get over yourself and be honest. Stop trying to imply your just trying to understand when it's clear that's not at all what you are trying to do.
I’m honest. You are drawing a false equivalence between very different things.
I’ll make this very simple for you. What you said was deeply disturbing in the same way as it would be for someone to suggest that theft is worse than murder because of their different priorities.
It is possible for your priorities to suck. Perhaps it’s a matter of opinion, but that’s absolutely meaningless. You could say the same about racism, would that make it better? I don’t think so.
If I may abstract your question to "Why start with a podcast instead of a rapper?", it does make a bit more sense to me to start with a podcast.
At least to me, a podcast has a more informative feel to it than songs. To songs, I listen 100% for entertainment. Could be different for different people, I guess.
I’ve only tried to listen to Rogan a couple of times, but based on those experiences and his general portrayal in the media it’s hard to imagine people viewing him as informational rather than as straight up entertainment.
The guy was heavily criticized for interviewing Alex Jones, a well known comedy sketch character.
Most likely his critics are just people who simply can’t differentiate between entertainment and information, so why treat music any different?
Spotify doesnt have to actively promote it via suggesting to other users, but stopping unpopular speech all together is how we get things like the lab leak theory being suppressed then suddenly being ok a year later when the mainstream decides it is.
I have no idea how this would work. Spotify has to make a decision about which content it pays for and which it doesn't, so you can't mandate it carry everything without massive changes to copyright. In this reality, it seems literally impossible for Spotify to carry everything that is illegal speech.
The issue is that a platform that caters to artists bet $100M that a man that has taken more blows to the head than is healthy, and who spreads disinformation about a global deadly public health crisis, is going to be great for business.
People like Rogan are alienated from culture. His listeners are marinated in talk radio, and, for a change of pace, sports talk radio. Sports talk radio consists entirely of men who are totally incapable of coaching elite teams confidently providing their opinion on how those teams should operate. These are the same men who will confidently tell you women should not have bodily autonomy, among other topics they have no knowledge of. Of course anyone who makes art, music, literature, theatre, etc. want nothing to do with them or their no-neck manosphere idol.
If the stock doesn't rebound that might just be it. It's what ~4b lost so far? I'm sure the main shareholders wont be too happy to find out they could have stopped this early on with little impact.
I’m not really convinced that the market value lost by Spotify has anything to do Neil Young. It’s much more likely that it’s just general market trends - the same thing has been happening to most tech stocks over the last couple of weeks
> It's ironic that these Sixties artists who sang about freedom from "the man" are now trying to force a giant corporation to censor another artist.
It would be ironic if artist- and artist-backed-consumer boycotts against giant corporations over actions including political messaging and associations weren't as much a part of the strategy of those same people in the 1960s and the rest of the intervening years as it is today.
> They could get the artists back by just pulling that one JRE episode
You think it would stop there? In these past conversations I haven't even seen anyone on HN point to anything specific that was said in the Robert Malone episode that was so bad it needed to be pulled. It's just been an implicit you should know why this person is bad and why we all hate them.
Edit: Downvotes instead of replies with what misinformation was shared... sounds about right.
I guess this is personal for them, since they both suffered from polio as children and are of the generation that would have understood how devastating diseases could be and how miraculous a vaccine can be.
Also it helps that they control their own catalog.
Well, that’s just sad if young people dont know where to buy albums. I would be embarrassed to admit that. Not everyone had gone to rent all their stuff just yet.
The article is from CNN.com and the cable infotainment networks and traditional media have a very strong interest in tanking alternative distribution channels for content.
That's cool. I wonder why the school I send my kid to keeps on sending these emails that my kid's cohort has someone who tested positive then, and I have to test him 5 days afterwards to see if he has to stay away.
Must be all this fake news[1] I hear is all the rage these days...
Is this comment unassailable? Does it completely invalidate grandparent? How dangerous is it culturally if the grandparent's assumptions and opinions are completely invalid??
I'm being serious, this is a culture-wide powder keg ready to explode!
There is a literal link to kids dying of covid in my post you responded to.
Covid is highly unlikely to be dangerous to kids, as far as we know. This much I can agree with, but we don't know if there are any long-term effects, and we won't until sufficient time has passed for that to be discovered. What if it makes kids under the age of 10 sterile ? (No, I don't think it does either, but it's an example of something you can't tell for a while).
And, however unlikely, with a sufficiently large population of kids being infected, there are some who will pay the ultimate price, it is a potentially lethal disease after all - and that utterly sucks if you're one of those kids' parents; I wonder how they feel, when people say "it's no worse than a mild cold for them", looking at their dead child one last time before burying him/her.
> Covid is highly unlikely to be dangerous to kids, as far as we know. This much I can agree with, but we don't know if there are any long-term effects, and we won't until sufficient time has passed for that to be discovered. What if it makes kids under the age of 10 sterile ? (No, I don't think it does either, but it's an example of something you can't tell for a while).
[Novel mRNA vaccines] are highly unlikely to be dangerous to kids, as far as we know. This much I can agree with, but we don't know if there are any long-term effects, and we won't until sufficient time has passed for that to be discovered. What if it makes kids under the age of 10 sterile ? (No, I don't think it does either, but it's an example of something you can't tell for a while).
> And, however unlikely, with a sufficiently large population of kids being infected, there are some who will pay the ultimate price, it is a potentially lethal disease after all - and that utterly sucks if you're one of those kids' parents; I wonder how they feel, when people say "it's no worse than a mild cold for them", looking at their dead child one last time before burying him/her.
COVID is as dangerous as a cold for children. That is a fact. Children die of the cold and flu every year. That also sucks for the parents of those children as well. What's the point you're trying to make? Are you advocating for a zero risk society?
[Novel mRNA vaccines] have been tested on literally hundreds of millions of adults with a tiny number of cases where the vaccine has been dangerous. The vaccines are medicine.
Covid has killed millions of people, and even when it doesn't kill, it can engender a long-term disability which massively reduces quality of life. Covid is a pathogen.
Are you seriously trying to equate these two ? Really ?
Yeah, and COVID has been "tested" on hundreds of millions of kids. Are they experiencing "long-term disability which massively reduces quality of life"? I think a wild claim like that needs a really good source! To that you'll probably just say "oh well we don't know yet, maybe in 10 years", which is the exact same line of reasoning I hear people say about the mRNA vaccines.
Personally I'm twice vaccinated with Pfizer. I think mRNA vaccines are a great innovation, but I'm 35 so their risk (and benefit) to me is negligible. I'd be much more cautious if I were responsible for giving it to children though.
Kids die more skying than from COVID. COVID is pretty juch the illness that kids die the less from.... There is no reason (apart from profit) for vaccinating them.
This is a false analogy, because COVID isn't nearly as dangerous as polio, especially to children, and the COVID vaccines aren't nearly as effective as the polio vaccines.
Polio only resulted in paralysis in ~0.5% of cases. The CFR for paralytic polio for children was around 2-5%, or 5-10% for all age groups. That would put the CFR for all polio cases at around 0.0175% for children, and 0.0375% overall.
Best I can find right now, there have been roughly 750 deaths of children in the US from COVID resulting from roughly 9.335 million cases, for a CFR of roughly 0.008%, slightly under half that of polio for the same age group. However, CFR overall is roughly 1.189% in the US for all age groups currently (879,971 deaths/74,037,216 cases), over 100x the rate of polio for all age groups.
That's not including long term effects from COVID with people having scarred lungs / damaged organs, new research indicating increased diabetes rates in children who have had COVID, new research finding long term micro blood clots even in asymptomatic cases, etc.
I find that I’m beginning to see a trend. Perhaps an early one to the majority of people (millions of users rather than the internet literate hacker news people). And that is to hold a position “your information is bad” without saying what their basis for comparison is.
I’m all for people making a stand. But if there’s no rebuttal, I will remain unconvinced.
Let me make a point... A couple centuries ago the similar story unfolded with some Galileo fella. I understand a few chaps were even burnt at stake (yikes!). The spat was about some astrophysical matter, and it was obvious to everybody that the guy is spreading misinformation. Just a little problem - turns out Galileo dude was actually right. Sorry ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ...
So, how do you know you are even on the right side here if instead of debating the matters you just want to shut the guy up?
Some governments, like Sweden for instance, have an official stance which matches the one made on JRE's show regarding Covid, ie: "no need to vaccinate children".
Will those artists ask for their songs not to be played in all those countries ?
I listened to JRE until mid-last year and I'm surprised how many people sanitize his views on Covid/vaccines.
He thinks that any "young" person (20s and below) should be hesitant on taking the vaccine.
He believes that taking the vaccine is more likely to cause adverse health effects than getting Covid for younger people.
He's convinced that alternate treatments like monoclonal antibodies and ivermectin are a better alternative to the vaccine.
He believes that masks are emasculating and make people look "stupid".
Any form of lockdown is government overreach.
Most of these claims are dubious if not outright false, and these aren't just occasional opinions thrown out during his 3+ hour long conversations, he makes it a point to bring these topics up for a large portion of his interviews. That's ignoring the fact that he brings on guests who have fringe opinions about Covid/vaccination but rarely (if ever since early 2020) interviews experts who are pro-vaccine.
If Joe Rogan and his controversial guests can make make a better argument for their pandemic perspective and influence people better than the CDC, Fauci, heath experts, et al. I’d argue that is more a failure of the CDC, Fauci, health experts, et al. as opposed to any failure of Spotify to censor and pull content from their platform.
If people want to make Joe Rogan inconsequential to the pandemic they should demand much better quality communication and chaos from our health experts, which has been sadly to date—all over the map.
JRE doesn't have open debates between pro/anti vaccine guests. He gives 3+ hours of air time to vaccine conspiracy theorists with very little pushback. It's easy to get swayed by a contrarian opinion if that's the only one you hear.
Children's hospitals usually admit patients up to about 20. No Child Left Behind included high school students, who may be 18. US child pornography laws include 17 year olds.
> “People are worried about them doing it for their children…. both my children got the virus. It was nothing,” he said. “I mean, I hate to say that if someone’s children died from this. I’m very sorry that that happened. I’m not in any way diminishing that. But I’m saying the personal experience that my children had with COVID was nothing.
He appears to be using the term "children" to mean "minors who are not able to make medical decisions on their own."
His oldest child is 12 years old, which is old enough that the Swedish health authority recommends she be vaccinated.
And remember, this was immediately after saying that healthy 21-year-olds who exercise don't need to get vaccinated - again, counter to the recommendation of the Swedish health authority.
I'll let icare_1er explain how the stance on the JRE matches the Sweden's so well that Joni Mitchell and others should correspondingly stop sales in Sweden. Because I just don't see it.
I am vaccinated and boosted and no longer have minors that I have to make medical decisions for, but if I did I would be weighing all information on the subject available to me before I made a decision to vaccinate my children against Covid-19. The rate of severe disease in healthy children was already so low and—if I am being perfected honest—the fact that the pharma companies behind the vaccines in the US are completely indemnified against lawsuits arising from harm that their vaccines may do would be a big factor in my decision making.
It’s one thing to take a risk with a newly developed medication with my own body, it’s quite another for me to take an unnecessary risk with a new medication with my children’s body.
I merely pointed out that that interpretation doesn't seem correct.
Since your definition of "children" is 11-and-younger, you appear to agree with the recommendation of Sweden's health authority to vaccinate all teens, and you appear to disagree with the recommendation mentioned on the JRE.
While you may doubt the US medical system, does not the combined views of the rest of the world's medical systems provide a backstop significantly stronger than your and Rogan's non-expert opinion?
I said what I said, If I needed to vaccinate my children I would want all information I can get available to me before I make the decision, pro, con, and otherwise. Since it’s a decision I don’t have to make, my opinion whether I agree with the US medical system, Sweden, or Joe Rogan doesn’t matter.
However, it is undeniable that the manufacturers have indemnification against any harm their vaccines may cause. If the vaccines are statistically safe, the manufacturers don’t need indemnification. If they are not statistically safe, or if their safety is unknown…they do, otherwise they would not release the product. That fact has to be considered. These companies are making billions at zero risk to them. Healthcare providers have zero risk in the recommendation. Government has zero risk at recommendations. At this point the only person assuming any risk is the patient getting the shot. And if that patient is young and healthy and statistically unlikely to have severe disease from Covid that risk assessment is important, especially for a parent.
But we aren't talking about you, and your extraordinary ability - far beyond mine! - to read and understand all of the information about every vaccine, medicine, and medical treatment your child might receive.
Instead, we're talking about two musicians exercising their right of free association to no longer be affiliated with a company who hosts an interview show recommending medical treatment that is at odds with the medical advice of a large number of independent medical systems.
And we're talking about the presumed hypocrisy of those musicians selling songs in Sweden based on the (IMO very wrong) assertion that the position presented in the JRE is the same as that of the Swedish medical authorities.
But if you want to talk about you - what is your solution to the DTP issue that introduced the vaccine courts in the first place? And why do you think the adversarial court model is a better solution than the no-fault system we have?
Interesting…here I thought all along that we were talking about on this little comment spur about who constitutes a “child” and whether or not those children should or should not get vaccinated and which opinions on that subject were popular where. I frankly don’t care what any musician does with their art and for whatever reason they choose to do it and I have said that elsewhere on this greater thread. I do care about attempts to suppress information and…whether I agree with that information or not. I don’t care that Neil Young wants his music pulled, but I would definitely care if Spotify pulled Joe Rogan off the air because Neil young wanted him off because of their conflicting opinions.
Ultimately you took umbrage with my explanation of a colloquial definition of “children” that is used where I am from (without even knowing where that is) and then proceeded down a rant about how I am wrong because you are apparently the gatekeeper of the English language or something (I guess).
And now you decide to end with a smartass commentary. I have said what I said, if that doesn’t interest you…oh well, don’t care. If you don’t agree with it…oh well, don’t care. If it offends or upsets you that I would approach vaccinating my own children with an experimental and novel vaccine by wanting to learn everything I can about it, oh well, don’t care.
You can read the comment thread and verify my interpretation, starting from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30128175 . I pointed out that Sweden's policy is not the same as expressed on the JRE even with your definition of what children means because Rogan also says that healthy young adult don't need to be vaccinated, contra Sweden's position.
> I frankly don’t care what any musician does with their art
Then I'm surprised you cared to even read an HN posting explicitly on that topic.
> I do care about attempts to suppress information
HN mods suppress information all the time. Why are you even here?
Should companies be obligated to spread false information? No, of course not.
Should companies face negative consequences for supporting the spread of false information? Yes, absolutely. Quoting John Stuart Mill in "On Liberty", chapter IV: "We have a right, and it may be our duty, to caution others against him, if we think his example or conversation likely to have a pernicious effect on those with whom he associates."
> you took umbrage
You forgot how I pointed out 1) examples of how "children" is used nation-wide to include 17-year-olds, and 2) how Rogan specifically includes a 12 year old in the use of the term "children".
It therefore doesn't matter that in my part of the country "children" only refers to tree frogs. (And if you disagree .. who made you the gatekeeper of English!)
> with an experimental and novel vaccine
When will you no longer regard it as experimental?
And I noticed you still haven't answered my question regarding the potential loss of the DTP supply and how that lead to the vaccine court system you don't like. Nor clarified how the no-fault vaccine court system is worse than the adversarial court system at properly identifying fault in vaccine failures.
Since that's an important topic for the matters you specifically complained about, why don't you want to talk about it?
I really hope Neil Young and Joni Mitchell (and any other artists of their ilk who think it should be basically illegal for people to hear anti-establishment opinions they don’t like) follow each other into removing their names from all news article headlines as well.
He didn't invent them, he worked on research to develop them.
Also, the issue is not that Rogan is just sharing an unpopular opinion, or featuring guests with unpopular opinions. The issue is that Rogan has repeatedly used his platform to promote COVID disinformation that people believe, which results in actual deaths and undermines effective efforts to mitigate the impact.
Is there a central universally trusted authority that decides what is disinformation? Is actually having such authority a good thing?
Note that I am not saying disinformation does not exist. I am saying that deciding what is disinfo is often difficult. In that light I think it is better to not limit information and instead of censorship fight it with counterarguments
I'm a fan of both artists but I don't think Joni Mitchell or Neil Young are even relevant to Spotify and their bottom line. Most folks under 30-35 probably don't even know who they are.
The timing is suspect given the profile of the disease has diminished and continues to fade.
I wouldn't be surprised if a gruntled woke faction inside Spotify is trying to get out of the Rogan contract and that's what this is all about. Lust for money and power over the past two years explain all the headscratchers like this for me.
You make a good point; another possibility is the COVID clingers all see the end on the horizon and are grasping at straws trying to take advantage of one last opportunity to admonish/control people.
This is an aggressive take. I don't entirely disagree, but it gives people the emotional fuel to dismiss our opinions as cracked. I prefer using mundane "greed" to explain the utter fuckery and torture the last 2 years have been.
The past 5 years have seen constant, back-to-back gaslightings. And, I am surrounded by people who think it's all normal.
A busybody at my place of business revels in dangerously libeling unvaccinated people as "plague bearers". The world is so filled with comfortable useful idiots like that who have NO IDEA how much ego death (or worse) awaits them when/if they find out they were duped.
I feel like greed is the wrong term for the COVID clingers, since it basically means addiction to money in particular, but the COVID clingers are addicted to power.
This is classic bullying. A group of cowards get together and beat up some poor fella who can't respond in kind. I don't understand how did this become acceptable.
When I was a kid, the big guy would approach me and pretend to hit me in the face, but stopping a fist an inch from my face. He was saying: "what am I - not supposed to move my hands? I am not touching you". That's an approximation to your reasoning. Yeah, they are not bullying anybody, they just pulling their music, nothing else is happening.
That's a poor analogy, since the artists are walking away from the situation entirely. If a friend of yours starts inviting over someone who does things you find distasteful, you have the right to stop spending time with them. There is no ethical issue with this, because anyone can exercise their freedom of association, which also happens to be a right protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Okay, how about different analogy. Abovementioned artists use their weight to manipulate unrelated third party to get back at another artist. That's the game others can also play. As someone noticed, Rogan has a devoted and large following. What if he entices his followers to respond in-kind? Perhaps a listener who happens to work in IRS can trigger an extensive audit. Or a cop pull over one of these guys and check them for some medical marijuana, like they did with Willie Nelson. We live in society, you know, and if you think people around these two cannot mess up their lives you are very mistaken. Is that really what you want us to descend to though? Or perhaps we live and leave others alone like descent people should, and look for peace not confrontation
Joe Rogan is also free to leave Spotify if he doesn't want to stay on it for any reason. There's nothing wrong with that, either.
If there's strong evidence that someone committed a crime like tax fraud, then they should be investigated. Whether they choose to publish content on Spotify or not is irrelevant.
You either ignored or didn't understand anything I wrote
One thing to add is what those two are doing is not actually so legal as you think. If this ends in court, a pretty solid case for tortuous interference with contract. It is not illegal to quit Spotify. But it is actually illegal to do so with intent to interfere with another contract.
I fully understood what you wrote, and I am not buying your argument. A claim of tortious interference would be rejected by the court because nobody was actually harmed.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 271 ms ] threadJoni Mitchell monthly listeners: 3,732,448
Taylor Swift monthly listeners: 53,819,855
Seems like she’s doing pretty OK to me.
I have always found it very telling how people who support free speech change their tune when they stand to lose their platform and audience because other people on those platforms do not wish to associate themselves with them. Would you prefer if artists like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell were forced to keep their content on Spotify even though they don’t agree with their association with Joe Rogan at the present time? - or if not, then what exactly is the problem?
Freedom of speech and freedom of association are two sides of the same street. If Joe Rogan is free to say whatever foolish nonsense he wants, as I believe he generally is if he’s not actively harming anyone, then Neil Young and Joni Mitchell (and others) are free to pull their content from the same platform to protest the platform bankrolling him. You should have freedom of speech, but there is no such thing as freedom of a platform for it - if people don’t want to hear it or be associated with it, they don’t have to, and they can withdraw their support (financial, content, etc.) of such platforms.
Also - it’s Rockin’ In The Free World, and the song is a biting and cynical satire. I’m not sure how you’re drawing a line between these two things unless you haven’t heard the lyrics before.
If I don’t like the deal you made with someone else, that’s extortion. It might be legal but it’s unethical. IANAL but it might even be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference#Tortious....
I don’t know or care about the law here, unless someone starts getting litigious then it’s really all naval gazing nonsense - like you said, you are not a lawyer, so I’m not going to entertain your theories on how this might be illegal. This is purely a matter of values - I value freedom of speech, and I also value people being able to freely associate with who they like, and that includes saying to someone that they will not associate with them while they maintain an association with someone else.
Spotify is totally free to bankroll Joe Rogan. Others are equally free to feel that this is a bad decision, to criticise it, and to withdraw support in the form of subscriptions or platform participation because they don’t want to contribute to it. Support for freedom of speech does not come with a requirement to support or share a platform with any particular example of speech.
Spotify can make a decision about what has more value to them in the long term. Subscribers and content producers can decide if funding and promoting Rogan is a dealbreaker for them. Thats’s all this comes down to - a business decision.
Personally the real crime here is that this has become an issue at all - thanks to Spotify’s frankly desperate attempt to become something other than a music streaming service. I have at no point been interested in Spotify providing podcasts; it’s already an active anti-feature for me, so “now we give some of your subscription to this asshole!!” isn't going to do much than tip me further in the direction of moving to another service.
I have never listened to podcasts on Spotify and never will, I use the podcasts app for this and it works quite well for me. I would have been very happy for Spotify to be a music streaming service with a killer app and better support for artists (hell I’d even pay another $5 a month for this, I tried Tidal as I think they pay artists well but I found their app to just not be as good as Spotify’s). As it stands, Joe Rogan makes millions of dollars from his deal with Spotify, while most artists I listen to will probably make pocket money - certainly not nearly enough to make a living, especially during a pandemic when touring is so difficult.
Ultimately I think Joe Rogan isn’t going anywhere unless he sees the writing on the wall and decides to take his millions and build his own platform. Frankly, it means nothing to me - I think it would be great if he stopped bringing on guests who routinely lie about the pandemic, but I don’t listen to his podcast so I just don’t care enough to get up in arms about it. But I absolutely reject the idea that this is censorship and I call it out when I can - deplatforming isn’t censorship, and he isn’t even being deplatformed.
Frank Zappa vs Tiper Gore for instance.
(Luckily for those of us growing up around this time, the ‘Parental Advisory’ sticker basically became a label of good taste - if it’s got that sticker, it might ge worth listening to.)
People understand distrinction between 'using your freedom to pursue your happiness' and 'using your freedom in order to punish someone'. Some action can be both 'exercising your liberty to free association' and 'using economic power to oppress others'.
In fact most people on Rogan's side are cheering them on to get their music removed.
People are just saying they are hysterical and childish, and it's ironic how these people were the icons of counter culture 30-40 years ago and now are doing the bidding of the powerful.
People generally don't like hypocrites, and like to point out hypocrisy. That's all.
The GP of your post says that this censorship. Another person who replied to me earlier said that this is immoral and possibly illegal. So no, there are in fact some people who are saying that Young and Mitchell either should not do this or should not be allowed to do this.
> doing the bidding of the powerful.
What a silly idea. There is nothing ironic, hysterical, or childish about people who stood against _real_ oppression (the struggles of the Civil Rights movement, conscription into a liar’s war in Vietnam) refusing to associate 50 years later with a business which provides a platform to people telling tales about _fake_ oppression (antivax sentiment, public health measures). Humour me and tell me more about the powerful figures they are doing the bidding of.
It’s entirely on you if you think there is any hypocrisy here. Maybe you just don’t understand what values were espoused by (some) people in the 60s counter culture. There are counter cultures and counter cultures, and while the counter culture of today in the USA might be simple contrarianism, the same cannot be said for that of the 60s, and there is no straight line from one to the other.
Let me give you a quote, you can guess who said it. Hint, he also had 3 different views on masks depending on what suited him:
“ When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent. Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, “I can nudge this up a bit,” so I went to 80, 85.”
It takes a special type of ignorance of human nature and history to think that questioning authority is not always something that is important, whether you agree with it or not. I have a lot more respect for liberals like glen greenwald to stand up to authority whoever they are, rather than sing about it for 30 years and then try and shut up someone who’s doing it currently.
Btw there’s nothing childish about the 70s counter culture, good for them at the time. What they are doing now is childish and hypocritical.
As for questioning authority: the notion that COVID is more harmful to the elderly than the young is generally true - but then a line is drawn through some alchemy from this to the notion that COVID is not dangerous for most young people, which regardless of how completely dubious a statement it is, still leads to a host of bad public outcomes.
We know that vaccines reduce the incidence of infection and the the severity of infection, and also that masks effectively reduce the incidence of infection. There is a popular sentiment that these things are either generally wrong (or lies), or that they should only apply to people with underlying health conditions making them more susceptible to infection. I don’t agree with the people who claim the latter, but I can’t and wouldn’t say they are lying or being dishonest - it’s a perfectly valid opinion to hold (and after all, it’s not illegal or immoral to be wrong :-) ). It’s the former case which is much more concerning, when people deny or contort the facts to suit their own agenda.
The concerns that people like Neil Young have is that bogus science from bogus professionals is being peddled to large audiences of platforms they share. It is their right to withdraw such association and, if they desire, to give an explanation for doing so. You have to really stretch the issue here to culture-war proportions to make this a matter of pro-government censorship etc.
Here we have someone in a position of authority literally admitting to lying or adjusting figures based on public sentimen.
That is not science. That is politics, and people are literally saying things Fauci and others say about the pandemic are unquestionable. Yet this guy is literally admitting to not telling the truth to manipulate the public.
If I were you I would at least question why you didn’t know about this, and whether trusting public health officials and politicians (on any side) is the truthful and scientific way to live. And why these people want to censor, if they are so right.
https://taibbi.substack.com
My quote was from here: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-folly-of-pandemic-censorsh...
Also: https://greenwald.substack.com
I really can’t account for Fauci’s statement here - it doesn’t look very good from what I can see, but the context is buried in a NYT article which is behind a paywall for me. Still, it doesn’t directly inform my position here - you can be broadly in favour of particular government policies without being all around the implementation. I think that liberal veneration of Fauci has elevated him to this position where he’s considered a saint for moderates, which is gross - he’s a public health official, nothing more and nothing less; the obsession with a public hero of the people, especially one who is non-elected, is just wrong, and makes it especially awkward when people inevitably find out that they are imperfect people and imperfect at their job. That being said, I think Trump’s politicisation of the office of a particular public servant was much more significant and repulsive.
You've basically admitted fauci has god like unquestionable status, and is lying, yet you still agree with people trying to censor the only large public figure talking to people questioning authority (note he also interviewed CNNs health expert, so both sides, which i listened to and agreed to on many points btw).
I rest my case.
Rest your case, we’re clearly not going to see eye to eye.
It is literally the feature of our system that lays the golden eggs that there is no such thing as a heretical thought.
Nonsense like qanon are the waste products of 100% open mindedness but you can't have it both ways. You will just end up with endless super hero movies in all realms of thought. A process that is already well under way.
It's disingenuous to lump these two things together. There's a bunch of things that people should be allowed to do, but that they shouldn't do.
I like Neil Young, and I don’t care what he chooses to do with his music. Pull it from Spotify, it’s going to hurt him financially more than hurt his fans, we have already purchased his music. If I can’t stream it, no biggie. If I really want to listen to NY, I’ll dust off the vinyl.
I am sure he has a sincerely held belief that to him that allows him to carve out an authoritarian pro-government exception that satisfies his own moral values. He has done it on a couple of songs.
However, I personally feel like a person who made his fame on anti-authoritarian, free speech, anti-government themes in his art should not be surprised at people drawing a conclusion that he is a hypocrite when he takes a public position that is pro-authoritarian, pro-government, and requesting corporate suppression of another person’s opinion.
Like I said…I don’t care what he does with his art, or whatever his opinion may be on a given subject, but he is literally known for activism and protest…and a focus on freedom, freedom of speech (Literally had a tour called “The Freedom of Speech Tour”), and anti-corporatism. In this case it appears that he attempted to financially force a corporation to silence someone who’s ideas and speech he didn’t like. It’s at the very least thematically out of character for him, and a bit contrary to one of the reasons I was a fan.
On more specific issues like a handful of companies benefiting financially from the pandemic … I absolutely agree, but dismissing the entire thing out of hand is really throwing the baby out with the bath water.
No one is silencing anyone. Do you really think Joe Rogan will just disappear if he is dropped from Spotify? He has the reach and means to build his own platform if he really wanted to.
Perhaps. The conventional wisdom and majority opinion of the US public in 1968 would have had the same opinion of the Vietnam war. If something happens that shows vaccines to have some as yet unknown long term side effect, in 20 years Rogan could be seen as right for his skepticism. We have already seen some recent pushback on masks and lockdown policies…even from folks on the left. Things can change…and fast.
Honestly I don’t think Spotify is going to do anything to piss off Rogan. His demographic is right in their sweet spot and he can’t go away without a huge cost to them. They are better to just ride it out. They bought him because his listeners are loyal, he goes away and lands on Rumble, so does his listeners.
‘Extortion’ is a concept in criminal law. Unless Rogan takes them or Spotify to court, it’s entirely moot whether this is extortion - but he would have a tenuous argument, as neither of them have coerced Spotify to do anything.
This isn’t splitting hairs or pedantry. It is simply stating facts. While stating the fact of the matter might not be as trite as the GP of your comment calling it ‘censorship’, it is no less correct.
Neil Young and Joni Mitchell both wanted Spotify to suppress Joe Rogan's speech.
Neil Young made a threat to obtain something - the removal of Joe Rogan from Spotify. The term "extortion" isn't limited to criminal law any more than censorship is limited to government action.
You are indeed splitting hairs and being pedantic. You are more worried about the exact technical wording (vs common usage and connotation) rather than the actual point of the debate.
[1] https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/neil-youngs-sp...
Some other things occur to me:
1. It's not like Joe Rogan owes his audience to Spotify.
2. Rogan is not "alt-right". The people who claim that he is are either lying or have adopted a creepy consequentialist mindset wherein someone is "alt-right" if they act in a way that they believe helps the "alt-right". In the latter case, I'm "alt-right" for writing this post.
3. Nothing Rogan says is ever that extreme. Dumb? Sure. But "young, healthy people don't need to get vaccinated" is not extreme. He's a controversial figure because he's a convenient foil for the legacy media.
The Corona vaccine works well, but being critical of the vaccine is a healthy thing.
Thankfully we are moving towards treating the flu and Corona virus the same way. Omicron has made that transition a lot easier.
If you do this, you've stooped to their level. Don't do this. Be better than them.
Am looking forward to seeing a lot less COVID stories, there are bigger issues that humanity needs to deal with.
Rogan routinely hosts people with very diverse views. Why wouldn't NY and JM go to Rogan's program and debate him? Why don't YOU go to his program and debate him if you are so certain you have a strong position? If you ask me, I'd say it's very sus, almost like they know they got nothing to say
Of course I assume this will only apply to narrow issues such as right wingers being deplatformed. For any other issue they'll go back to a maximalist interpretation of corporate property rights.
This argument goes both ways. Don't most people who think Big Tech should be allowed to keep censoring people because of the First Amendment, also think that the First Amendment shouldn't apply to corporations when it comes to Citizens United?
It gets even worse when you consider that many corporations are international entities whose interests may not be aligned at all with those of US voters. It's a bit like letting people overseas come into the US and contribute to campaigns and run political ads without limit. In fact it more or less allows this since it's trivial for a foreign individual (or state actor) to use a corporation as a front.
Personally I think Citizens United is a threat to national security. If we were still in the Cold War you'd have the USSR contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to PACs and DC think tanks after laundering it through byzantine financial relationships with US front companies.
I'm just referring to the hypocrisy of right wingers suddenly discovering the issues with monopolies (and narrow oligopolies) when it affects them. You'd be hearing nothing about big tech from the right if they hadn't deplatformed people on the right.
I couldn't find anything about protests but people did go on strike in Pullman-Lesson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town#Pullman_lesson
> Should we take away people's right to protest in that city, since doing otherwise would be compelling speech by the company?
I guess, if they didn't like the protesters, they would just say any protesters are on their property and they have the right to eject them or never even let them in. Whilst it was never built (for other reasons) a good example is the Garden Bridge in London. [1]
Despite this looking like publib infra:
"All groups of eight or more visitors would be required to contact the Garden Bridge Trust to request a formal visit to the bridge,” states Lambeth council’s planning report to its committee, which recommends conditional planning. “This policy would not only assist visitor management but also would discourage protest groups from trying to access the bridge.” [2]
Obviously this hasn't been tested at the city level, but the direction of travel ain't great.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_Bridge [2] https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design...
If by "actions" you mean "saying things you disagree with" and by "consequences" you mean "trying your hardest to permanently deprive them of their livelihood", then sure.
He seems to be doing just fine. The article you posted doesn't even say his new employers refused to hire him because of "the mob." You're not exactly proving cancel culture to be the life-destroying force you made it out to be earlier.
Sure, maybe his new employer stood up to the cancel mob. But if the cancel mob got what they wanted, then he would be "destitute and living under a park bench, a pariah shunned by society". Their goals don't stop being evil just because they failed to complete them.
> You're not exactly proving cancel culture to be the life-destroying force you made it out to be earlier.
It's not life-destroying because they "just" succeeded at getting him fired from one job, and weren't successful at getting him immediately fired from his new one?
It's not life-destroying because, as far as I'm aware, no one's life - including his - has ever been destroyed by it.
Your claims and the hyperbole of your rhetoric just aren't borne out by reality.
Neil Young sold 50% of his publishing rights for $150m[0], so he is doing fine without Spotify.
It is much harder for new artists to make a similar stand. They rely too heavily on Spotify for exposure and the small amount of income they get from playlists and automatically being added via the algorithms used.
So it is easier for the older artists to 'make a stand' without much cost to themselves.
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/petersuciu/2022/01/26/social-me...
I'm pretty sure there will be other conspiracy theories, misinformation, or total nonsense that Joe Rogan or his guests will peddle after Covid, as he has been doing before. I'm curious to see how many musicians or podcasters are ready to leave Spotify.
Just the fact that three years, at least, were devoted to the non existent Russia collusion story, and almost nothing else, should be enough to change the channel.
There is vastly more damaging content on spotify than Joe Rogan, some of it is certainly more popular than him.
I’m just making a simple observation that this hill in particular is a weird one to die on.
And you know, perhaps, if someone chooses to die on this particular hill we can rightfully wonder about their commitment to other, much more meaningful causes?
Edit: I also want to know why you think any of these causes are more meaningful than another. Perhaps it's more meaningful to you, but the world doesn't have to live by your standards. The fact that you might hold different levels of meaning than someone else may answer your question.
Everything is possible, but I doubt it. How could a musician not be aware of this? Controversy over lyrics isn’t a new thing, even if it has been fading away lately.
> Edit: I also want to know why you think any of these causes are more meaningful than another. Perhaps it's more meaningful to you, but the world doesn't have to live by your standards. The fact that you might hold different levels of meaning than someone else may answer your question.
Your implication that someone talking about nonsensical COVID treatments could be anywhere near as damaging as racism is deeply disturbing.
And don’t forget that this is a podcast that has also featured other comedians like Alex Jones, perhaps you shouldn’t take it seriously?
I’ll make this very simple for you. What you said was deeply disturbing in the same way as it would be for someone to suggest that theft is worse than murder because of their different priorities.
It is possible for your priorities to suck. Perhaps it’s a matter of opinion, but that’s absolutely meaningless. You could say the same about racism, would that make it better? I don’t think so.
(I’m not advocating for either, but Eminem regularly says far worse things than Joe)
At least to me, a podcast has a more informative feel to it than songs. To songs, I listen 100% for entertainment. Could be different for different people, I guess.
The guy was heavily criticized for interviewing Alex Jones, a well known comedy sketch character.
Most likely his critics are just people who simply can’t differentiate between entertainment and information, so why treat music any different?
Spotify doesnt have to actively promote it via suggesting to other users, but stopping unpopular speech all together is how we get things like the lab leak theory being suppressed then suddenly being ok a year later when the mainstream decides it is.
People like Rogan are alienated from culture. His listeners are marinated in talk radio, and, for a change of pace, sports talk radio. Sports talk radio consists entirely of men who are totally incapable of coaching elite teams confidently providing their opinion on how those teams should operate. These are the same men who will confidently tell you women should not have bodily autonomy, among other topics they have no knowledge of. Of course anyone who makes art, music, literature, theatre, etc. want nothing to do with them or their no-neck manosphere idol.
They could get the artists back by just pulling that one JRE episode, but would that break their contract with Joe Rogan?
It's ironic that these Sixties artists who sang about freedom from "the man" are now trying to force a giant corporation to censor another artist.
It would be ironic if artist- and artist-backed-consumer boycotts against giant corporations over actions including political messaging and associations weren't as much a part of the strategy of those same people in the 1960s and the rest of the intervening years as it is today.
You think it would stop there? In these past conversations I haven't even seen anyone on HN point to anything specific that was said in the Robert Malone episode that was so bad it needed to be pulled. It's just been an implicit you should know why this person is bad and why we all hate them.
Edit: Downvotes instead of replies with what misinformation was shared... sounds about right.
Also it helps that they control their own catalog.
Must be all this fake news[1] I hear is all the rage these days...
[1] https://www.newsweek.com/eighth-child-under-10-dies-covid-19...
[edit for grammar]
I'm being serious, this is a culture-wide powder keg ready to explode!
Covid is highly unlikely to be dangerous to kids, as far as we know. This much I can agree with, but we don't know if there are any long-term effects, and we won't until sufficient time has passed for that to be discovered. What if it makes kids under the age of 10 sterile ? (No, I don't think it does either, but it's an example of something you can't tell for a while).
And, however unlikely, with a sufficiently large population of kids being infected, there are some who will pay the ultimate price, it is a potentially lethal disease after all - and that utterly sucks if you're one of those kids' parents; I wonder how they feel, when people say "it's no worse than a mild cold for them", looking at their dead child one last time before burying him/her.
[Novel mRNA vaccines] are highly unlikely to be dangerous to kids, as far as we know. This much I can agree with, but we don't know if there are any long-term effects, and we won't until sufficient time has passed for that to be discovered. What if it makes kids under the age of 10 sterile ? (No, I don't think it does either, but it's an example of something you can't tell for a while).
> And, however unlikely, with a sufficiently large population of kids being infected, there are some who will pay the ultimate price, it is a potentially lethal disease after all - and that utterly sucks if you're one of those kids' parents; I wonder how they feel, when people say "it's no worse than a mild cold for them", looking at their dead child one last time before burying him/her.
COVID is as dangerous as a cold for children. That is a fact. Children die of the cold and flu every year. That also sucks for the parents of those children as well. What's the point you're trying to make? Are you advocating for a zero risk society?
Covid has killed millions of people, and even when it doesn't kill, it can engender a long-term disability which massively reduces quality of life. Covid is a pathogen.
Are you seriously trying to equate these two ? Really ?
Personally I'm twice vaccinated with Pfizer. I think mRNA vaccines are a great innovation, but I'm 35 so their risk (and benefit) to me is negligible. I'd be much more cautious if I were responsible for giving it to children though.
Best I can find right now, there have been roughly 750 deaths of children in the US from COVID resulting from roughly 9.335 million cases, for a CFR of roughly 0.008%, slightly under half that of polio for the same age group. However, CFR overall is roughly 1.189% in the US for all age groups currently (879,971 deaths/74,037,216 cases), over 100x the rate of polio for all age groups.
That's not including long term effects from COVID with people having scarred lungs / damaged organs, new research indicating increased diabetes rates in children who have had COVID, new research finding long term micro blood clots even in asymptomatic cases, etc.
> Oh no! ... Anyway...
I’m all for people making a stand. But if there’s no rebuttal, I will remain unconvinced.
So, how do you know you are even on the right side here if instead of debating the matters you just want to shut the guy up?
Will those artists ask for their songs not to be played in all those countries ?
He thinks that any "young" person (20s and below) should be hesitant on taking the vaccine.
He believes that taking the vaccine is more likely to cause adverse health effects than getting Covid for younger people.
He's convinced that alternate treatments like monoclonal antibodies and ivermectin are a better alternative to the vaccine.
He believes that masks are emasculating and make people look "stupid".
Any form of lockdown is government overreach.
Most of these claims are dubious if not outright false, and these aren't just occasional opinions thrown out during his 3+ hour long conversations, he makes it a point to bring these topics up for a large portion of his interviews. That's ignoring the fact that he brings on guests who have fringe opinions about Covid/vaccination but rarely (if ever since early 2020) interviews experts who are pro-vaccine.
If people want to make Joe Rogan inconsequential to the pandemic they should demand much better quality communication and chaos from our health experts, which has been sadly to date—all over the map.
So are these people are only forced to listen to JRE? Does Spotify have other podcasts that prevent a contrary opinion to JRE?
How do you translate that to "no need to vaccinate children"?
Kids 12 and over we consider “teens”.
That’s how I read that comment, perhaps that is what the commenter meant.
Setting those counter-examples aside - in the relevant interview we know Rogan said, quoting https://www.thewrap.com/joe-rogan-slammed-for-deeply-irrespo... :
> “People are worried about them doing it for their children…. both my children got the virus. It was nothing,” he said. “I mean, I hate to say that if someone’s children died from this. I’m very sorry that that happened. I’m not in any way diminishing that. But I’m saying the personal experience that my children had with COVID was nothing.
He appears to be using the term "children" to mean "minors who are not able to make medical decisions on their own."
His oldest child is 12 years old, which is old enough that the Swedish health authority recommends she be vaccinated.
And remember, this was immediately after saying that healthy 21-year-olds who exercise don't need to get vaccinated - again, counter to the recommendation of the Swedish health authority.
I'll let icare_1er explain how the stance on the JRE matches the Sweden's so well that Joni Mitchell and others should correspondingly stop sales in Sweden. Because I just don't see it.
I am vaccinated and boosted and no longer have minors that I have to make medical decisions for, but if I did I would be weighing all information on the subject available to me before I made a decision to vaccinate my children against Covid-19. The rate of severe disease in healthy children was already so low and—if I am being perfected honest—the fact that the pharma companies behind the vaccines in the US are completely indemnified against lawsuits arising from harm that their vaccines may do would be a big factor in my decision making.
It’s one thing to take a risk with a newly developed medication with my own body, it’s quite another for me to take an unnecessary risk with a new medication with my children’s body.
Since your definition of "children" is 11-and-younger, you appear to agree with the recommendation of Sweden's health authority to vaccinate all teens, and you appear to disagree with the recommendation mentioned on the JRE.
While you may doubt the US medical system, does not the combined views of the rest of the world's medical systems provide a backstop significantly stronger than your and Rogan's non-expert opinion?
However, it is undeniable that the manufacturers have indemnification against any harm their vaccines may cause. If the vaccines are statistically safe, the manufacturers don’t need indemnification. If they are not statistically safe, or if their safety is unknown…they do, otherwise they would not release the product. That fact has to be considered. These companies are making billions at zero risk to them. Healthcare providers have zero risk in the recommendation. Government has zero risk at recommendations. At this point the only person assuming any risk is the patient getting the shot. And if that patient is young and healthy and statistically unlikely to have severe disease from Covid that risk assessment is important, especially for a parent.
Instead, we're talking about two musicians exercising their right of free association to no longer be affiliated with a company who hosts an interview show recommending medical treatment that is at odds with the medical advice of a large number of independent medical systems.
And we're talking about the presumed hypocrisy of those musicians selling songs in Sweden based on the (IMO very wrong) assertion that the position presented in the JRE is the same as that of the Swedish medical authorities.
But if you want to talk about you - what is your solution to the DTP issue that introduced the vaccine courts in the first place? And why do you think the adversarial court model is a better solution than the no-fault system we have?
Ultimately you took umbrage with my explanation of a colloquial definition of “children” that is used where I am from (without even knowing where that is) and then proceeded down a rant about how I am wrong because you are apparently the gatekeeper of the English language or something (I guess).
And now you decide to end with a smartass commentary. I have said what I said, if that doesn’t interest you…oh well, don’t care. If you don’t agree with it…oh well, don’t care. If it offends or upsets you that I would approach vaccinating my own children with an experimental and novel vaccine by wanting to learn everything I can about it, oh well, don’t care.
You can read the comment thread and verify my interpretation, starting from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30128175 . I pointed out that Sweden's policy is not the same as expressed on the JRE even with your definition of what children means because Rogan also says that healthy young adult don't need to be vaccinated, contra Sweden's position.
At https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30130966 you decided to talk about your personal feelings about vaccination of your under-12s.
> I frankly don’t care what any musician does with their art
Then I'm surprised you cared to even read an HN posting explicitly on that topic.
> I do care about attempts to suppress information
HN mods suppress information all the time. Why are you even here?
Should companies be obligated to spread false information? No, of course not.
Should companies face negative consequences for supporting the spread of false information? Yes, absolutely. Quoting John Stuart Mill in "On Liberty", chapter IV: "We have a right, and it may be our duty, to caution others against him, if we think his example or conversation likely to have a pernicious effect on those with whom he associates."
> you took umbrage
You forgot how I pointed out 1) examples of how "children" is used nation-wide to include 17-year-olds, and 2) how Rogan specifically includes a 12 year old in the use of the term "children".
It therefore doesn't matter that in my part of the country "children" only refers to tree frogs. (And if you disagree .. who made you the gatekeeper of English!)
> with an experimental and novel vaccine
When will you no longer regard it as experimental?
And I noticed you still haven't answered my question regarding the potential loss of the DTP supply and how that lead to the vaccine court system you don't like. Nor clarified how the no-fault vaccine court system is worse than the adversarial court system at properly identifying fault in vaccine failures.
Since that's an important topic for the matters you specifically complained about, why don't you want to talk about it?
Have a good day
Also, the issue is not that Rogan is just sharing an unpopular opinion, or featuring guests with unpopular opinions. The issue is that Rogan has repeatedly used his platform to promote COVID disinformation that people believe, which results in actual deaths and undermines effective efforts to mitigate the impact.
Note that I am not saying disinformation does not exist. I am saying that deciding what is disinfo is often difficult. In that light I think it is better to not limit information and instead of censorship fight it with counterarguments
I wouldn't be surprised if a gruntled woke faction inside Spotify is trying to get out of the Rogan contract and that's what this is all about. Lust for money and power over the past two years explain all the headscratchers like this for me.
The past 5 years have seen constant, back-to-back gaslightings. And, I am surrounded by people who think it's all normal.
A busybody at my place of business revels in dangerously libeling unvaccinated people as "plague bearers". The world is so filled with comfortable useful idiots like that who have NO IDEA how much ego death (or worse) awaits them when/if they find out they were duped.
Rogan, who got paid $100M to do his podcast there? Or Spotify, with a market cap of $32B?
If there's strong evidence that someone committed a crime like tax fraud, then they should be investigated. Whether they choose to publish content on Spotify or not is irrelevant.
One thing to add is what those two are doing is not actually so legal as you think. If this ends in court, a pretty solid case for tortuous interference with contract. It is not illegal to quit Spotify. But it is actually illegal to do so with intent to interfere with another contract.