I'll resist[0] the impulse to make fun of these artists as having an inflated sense of their own importance, and simply join others in noting that this kind of behavior shouldn't be tolerated. It sets a horrible precedent, no matter what one thinks about Joe Rogan.
Edit: Too late now to save myself from downvote land, but I just spoke poorly. I meant it shouldn't be tolerated in the form of Spotify acquiescing to the demands. Obviously the artists can do whatever they want.
Joe Rogan has been right a lot, he can’t be right about everything. I think this is an ego problem of an icon turned to insignificance, irritated he doesn’t get an invite to the biggest show of the world.
Why shouldn’t this behavior be tolerated? This is the response that they uniquely can make to protest for what they believe in.
I do not condone censorship and I’m more concerned about the surgeon general suggesting that Spotify should censor Joe Rogan but these actions are also falling in the lines of free expression, which should be protected.
I wonder if Mr. Young will apply the same moral stringency to the rest of his distributors. I also wonder if his fans are aware of his own unscientific misinformation campaigns in regards to GMO foods.
I think most wonder - where does it end? What heterodox positions are tolerated and which ones aren’t? Especially in the context of something like a broad based music distributor.
Isn’t this just life/humanity? No one is ever gonna have a 100% scientific correct moral applied equally to all of their life. He is gonna protest some stuff and not other stuff. I’m not really afraid of a slippery slope here. I think the bigger problem is people not taking a real stand in what they believe.
For me there is a cultural question of - what kind of heterodox should be considered normal as part of a broad based distribution service.
For example, there are a number of artists who seem to glorify killing police. Should we consider it normal that big time artist XYZ would feel the need to remove their music from the service? Yes, it would be their right (I don't think anyone disputes that)... but... is that a good cultural trend?
To my eyes, this looks more like tribalistic posturing than some sort of principled stand for something.
It's hard to call it a cultural trend when it's a couple famous people removing their library of music from one music service. I don't think it's unethical for a musician to stop working with a distributor if the terms of that stop being acceptable, that's wholly reasonable.
But to try and answer your question; no, I think it's kind of silly. Someone like Neil Young can only do this sort of thing once and trying to use it to deplatform another entertainer doesn't seem to be the most useful (removing Joe Rogan's podcast or whatever won't make a dent in the cause he supposedly is fighting for) and also not particularly effective unless there is a cataclysm of high profile musicians removing their music from Spotify.
Neil Young has, as far as I’m aware, made a point of arguing against GMO policy, not science. He’s anti-corporate, greed and an environmentalist, and Monsanto and glysophate are credible threats to farmers and the environment, respectively.
I know less about the plight of farmers being forced to use GM seed, but I am intimately familiar with the decimation of insect life in the last decade.
A couple of old, out of touch rich people throwing a tantrum because they have to share a club with a loud gregarious buffoon that's wildly popular with others.
Are they childhood survivors of authoritarian governments that turned into oligarchies? Maybe if they had been, they wouldn't be so convinced that rich and famous people should get to decide what ideas other people are exposed to.
They are simply deciding that they don't want to share a platform with Joe Rogan. Neil Young made it clear it's an either/or; Spotify went with "or". Their prerogative on both sides.
Yeah but Neil Young's steadfast support of patriarchal dominance of the music industry and the treatment of female artists as sex objects over the past 50 odd years coupled with his so called "dangerous misinformation" on GMO foods isn't a good enough reason to try and silence him. Besides some of his old music really isn't too bad at all!
What misinformation? And was it Rogan's view or that of one of his guests?
And is it actually misinformation, or just controversial? Or you (& others) just disagree?
I mean, a lot has been said on Rogan's podcast over the years. Not all of it is likely to be correct. Even if we restrict ourselves to considering topics related to the Sars-Cov-2 epidemic, Rogan has spoken to many people, about many aspects of the situation.
I for one, quite enjoy his podcast. He speaks to many, varied very interesting and intelligent people, on range of topics. Politicians, scientists, doctors, special operators, hunters, actors, comedians, philosophers, ethicists.
But Joni Mitchell & Neil Young want Spotify to remove him from Spotify, because they disagree with something (or things) that was said on his podcast? And everyone agrees that this is a sound and reasonable thing?
To me it's no different than pulling your art from a gallery which is selling the paintings of John Wayne Gacy next to your work - except that music recordings are reproducible, so you can sell the same thing on multiple platforms.
(Artists in physical media can still distribute their work across many galleries - or "platforms")
You mean in the interests of free speech, artists who you think have an inflated sense of their own importance should necessarily sacrifice their freedom of speech for someone who is parroting dangerous untruths?
Pulling their music from Spotify is speech. Why can they _not_ do it? What makes what they are doing a "horrible precedent"?
I didn't actually mention free speech in my comment, which (although I do passionately believe in it!) I don't consider the main issue here. If a precedent is set for artists being rewarded for demanding that other artists be removed from platforms, where will it end? How will the line be drawn? How much content will the people listening on these platforms be deprived of simply because of rivalries and the like? It doesn't seem like it's in the interest of listeners or customers to behave this way.
In what sense are Mitchell and Young being _rewarded_? They're going to lose some money, right? And they've certainly lost a few Joe Rogan fans.
Both of them simply asserted their right not to share a platform with someone they believe is doing significant harm. They owe him and their (Spotify's) customers nothing in particular.
It'll either work out for them and they'll get what they want, or it won't.
Yes let them exercise their free speech so they can collectively silence others; You're on to something.
And speaking of parroting, I'll agree that much of what joe and by proxy his guests say is dangerous. Where we disagree is whether or not these things are "untrue" and to whom they are dangerous towards.
There are plenty of examples through history of mass speech overturning things.
And there are plenty of boycotts organised by both left and right wing media the world over.
In the last four or five years, Trump urged boycotts of MLB, Coke, Goodyear, AT&T, Delta, JP Morgan Chase, Viacom, Merck, Cisco the NFL.
Trump _supporters_ (major and minor) have urged boycotts of Meetup, Nike, Nordstrom, Starbucks, Netflix, Pepsi, Nabisco, Anheuser Busch, Amazon, Ben & Jerry's, Apple, Ford, Bank of America... and Tucker Carlson is currently nursing very public hurt feelings about anthropomorphic chocolate CGI characters.
This stuff happens. It's how change of all kinds happens. It shouldn't be surprising if it is aimed at Joe Rogan, since he's so fond of being outspoken.
It's a bit of tolerance paradox, in order to protect free speech we should avoid the free speech that want to censor others, otherwise we all lose the right. So of course pulling their music is their right, but it stops being acceptable when they pull their rights in order to prevent others from speaking. I am of the idea that we must tolerate free speech up to the point where this free speech is used to prevent others from speaking, that's the issue in this case
--
On the other hand what does this people want? Like I have 3 shots, I have done whatever the government and science asked, I did the first 2 booster and I've listened to the campaign where they said that it would lead us to be open and live again, then we went again in lockdown closed inside (I'm european), despite the vast majority having the vaccines (85%++), Then there was a third shot, now they're talking about the fourth one, meanwhile people still goes to ICU and people is still dying, and still getting infected (100k a day), I want to understand science and politicians, but at this point can we just like following blindly whatever is said and maybe start asking some questions? Can we start having some doubts about effectiveness of meds and/or measures or we just need to keep silent?
This isnt a free speech issue. Neil Young is not the government nor is spotify. If Neil Young didn't want to be on the same tv show as joe rogan nobody would care. This amounts to the exact same thing.
I don't believe that free speech only applies to governments, free speech also applies to the general population, also because we don't elect toasters and coffee machines to governments, and elected people have the power to change regulations and amendments, so I feel like attack on free speech need to be fought starting from our neighbours
About Neil Young not being willing to participate along with other people, I would appreciate more Neil Young to go to participate with people and counter-argumenting their ideas with words, instead of being a little kid acting like "Gne gne gne I don't want to talk to you, teacher please can you send him out of the class?", I mean we're adult and capable of expressing complex ideas and counter-arguments, there's no need to running away, imho, but he's free all he wants to be a kid, just let's not consider him a paladine of anything
Consider one thing that I found extremely upsetting, as european, like the BBC was attacked for spreading misinformation only to have REPORTED news of people protesting in cities against lockdown measures
This comment speaks like it was written as a joke. Why pretend like anyone's even remotely considering banning Joe Rogan from Spotify? Why pretend like there's a shortage of research? There's a vast amount of scientific research you could peruse if you have questions. There's no societal need for ignorant bullshit.
To be honest I have no time to waste with you, also because people who just avoid whole segments of articles in order to be right are usually either not genuinely taking part of the conversation or they lack comprehension skills, so one ends up being like Don Quixote fighting windmills
Quoted word by word from the article: "Last Monday, Young announced that he had asked his management and record label to remove his music from Spotify in protest of the streaming service's decision to host Joe Rogan's podcast"
If that doesn't mean that he wants to ban Joe Rogan from spotify, then what does it mean?
It means he isn't pleased with Spotify, and as such wants to remove his music. Pretty obvious. Hypothetically, imagine Spotify lost so much money losing Neil Young they remove the entire podcast. Young still might not come back because the point isn't about banning Rogan, the point is there's a real consequence for the misinformation they paid for.
This needs to be drilled harder: People can express their views until cows come home. Knock yourself out.
But, that's precisely what Young is not doing. He wants to silence (and deny the FoS) Rogan. That is the distinction that keeps being ignored in this thread and elsewhere.
Nobody's FoS is under threat here. FoS does not entitle access to a broadcast medium, i.e. Spotify or YouTube. FoS simply means being able to publish your views without government censorship.
If you create your own newspaper, Spotify or YouTube you also control its editorial policy (what gets selected for publication, what gets taken down). But you can not demand that the New York Times, Spotify or Google change their editorial policy to let you publish your views. Access is a privilege, not a right.
What Young is doing here is calling in question Spotify's editorial policy for giving Rogan such a visible position on the platform. He is within his rights to do so. IF Spotify had removed Rogan instead, Rogan would need to find a new publisher but his FoS would not have been violated at any point.
Just as one example, Rolling Stone quotes him as saying:
“This doctor was saying ivermectin is 99 percent effective in treating Covid, but you don’t hear about it because you can’t fund vaccines when it’s an effective treatment”
No responsible doctor said that -- it's a two-part untruth. First off, there's not the evidence to support the 99% claim. Second, it's not really particularly evident that an effective treatment for a disease has much impact on a search for a vaccine; there are effective treatments for HIV but the search for a vaccine continues, for example.
It's dangerous to make claims like that without evidence.
Within their legal rights? Sure. But they are advocating for others to be silenced in the same breath, not just silently pulling their content. In other words, they are using power (financial power, celebrity influence) to silence others. That is incompatible with the ideas underlying a classically liberal free society.
Joe Rogan is an artist too, we have 3 entertainers, they are here to entertain us. I suspect you are more educated than the 3 of them combined, don't fall into to trap of picking which kardashian is best.
This is why I still buy music I like - either physical media, or DRM-free files I can archive away. It's more expensive and labor intensive to manage, but at least I don't have to worry about my music ever vanishing for one reason or another. Things like Spotify are useful for discovering new stuff, but I sort of like knowing that stuff I like will always be available for me to enjoy regardless of what's going on amongst artists, labels, service providers, etc.
I was hoping for a streaming server(and clients) I suppose!, which maybe also fetches podcasts and also maybe does audiobooks and perhaps manage buying from stores which supports DRM free content downloads.
There's also Rhythmbox and Amarok but I never like them too much. I think Nextcloud may have what you want, I just can't speak to that since I haven't used it myself.
This looks a good fit for people with Apple devices .
Sadly no clients for android. I have a mix of Linux , OSX Android and iOS, I won't be able to use in half of them! but given podcasts and other itunes features i suppose this best out of the box solution out there.
True. When I’m at home, the NAS serves up the music to my Linux systems. Unfortunately, not so useful when I’m on the road - in that case you’re right, I’m stuck with the apple devices. I would love for something like iTunes Match that worked as smoothly for non apple devices. That is probably the one apple service that keeps me locked into their ecosystem, and that bugs me.
It's not going to help much though. People like that will also try bullying sellers into not selling stuff by someone who says or believes something they don't like. Sure, you can still enjoy what you've already got, but good luck getting anything new from your favourite artist.
That makes no sense. Its hard to say how much its going to help - today's fringe trend can easily get "hot". Look at vinyl record consumption, which dipped for decades and then came back with a vengeance. Plus, if even a 10% of a fanbase switches to traditional media, I bet that would have an impact on the artists bottom line. And anyway, it's a good thing to do regardless for all the reasons people have mentioned (I buy physical media myself, mostly on discogs, alibris, and sometimes ebay. sadly there are no record stores in my area anymore).
I'm always sad when I can't find on Bandcamp a band I just heard on Youtube. I'd just pay them outright, with rather few intermediate layers, and no DRM.
What you should back up is the playlists, since no matter what you buy, you will never legally own the music. Sometimes it's easier to work around the DRM than other times, but in no case are you supposed to be able to make copies and I find it easier not to try this and keep hundreds of extra gigabytes around when I pay for the service to host this for me already. The music will exist elsewhere as well, from the pirate bay to youtube to other music services to CDs if need be. The playlists are the data they can keep hostage, so I back that up.
When Grooveshark went offline without notice, I was lucky to have some offline songs on Android and some localStorage in the browser (and the skills to retrieve it). I don't want that to happen again, I lost quite a bit of music there, so I back this up now. At first I used a self-made a Spotify API client; later I found another tool to do this with: https://github.com/watsonbox/exportify
For Neil Young this actually might work out well financially. He gets more media exposure than he has had in 20, 30 years? I won't be surprised if his album sale 5x this year and his streams 10x. Whatever money he loses from not being on spotify will be made up on other services. He was the first so will be remembered for a while. Probably get invited to some events more readily.
Not a comment on the Rogen or the moral aspect of this move, just the money.
> I don't think he cares much about money at this point.
I think that is probably right in terms of stuff you can spend. What he probably does care about is relevance and a sense of importance. If you look at anyone with that kind of money, they've got more than they can spend, more than their family and grandchildren can meaningfully spend and yet frequently they don't stop working at their business. One rich guy in Australia a few decades ago made that point and said he considered money from his deals as a substitute for applause.
I strongly doubt Neil Young would be willing to take up a public position that involved a real sacrifice on his part, where he was rejected by the orthodoxy of his tribe. He's had plenty of opportunity to take a strong position and hasn't until this one which will probably lose him very, very few admirers. I could be wrong about that and he could prove me so too.
While Tidal’s app is a little rough around the edges, and their auto-playlist stuff isn’t quite as smart, it has a solid catalogue and i’m pretty happy with it.
I like Spotify because it allows me to use smartphone app to control player on PC. Does Tidal or some other service have that kind of remote control? Genuinely asking.
Is it worth getting Tidal if I primarily listen with AirPods? I've heard that Bluetooth decreases audio quality, so that would negate any benefit of the lossless music Tidal provides.
There seems to be a whole middleman ecosystem pasting together playlist APIs from different services for people migrating around. Tidal links to one but does not do the import themselves.
I'm surprised there are so many and they all feel like gatekeeping and upsell are their patterns.
Who, precisely, is "canceling" (much less "silencing") who in this scenario?
As I recall, the Supreme Court has consistently recognized the freedom of association as a core component of free speech. And that seems to be what's happening.
Perhaps you didn't know, but Neil Young tried to get Spotify to deplatform Joe Rogan (i.e., to cancel his Spotify distribution deal), and used his repertoire as an ultimatum.
EDIT: I'm being downvoted to oblivion for stating an objective fact. This is unbecoming of HN. I'm out.
The linguistic choice of "deplatform[ing]" is such a funny one: in any other era, we'd call withholding one's business a "boycott."
But the history of the word "boycott" in the US has a distinctly anti-racial hue, and people who yammer about deplatforming seem to take extreme pains to avoid any comparison between today's boycotts and those good old lunch counters.
I've never heard this before. I and people I know boycott things all the time.
There's also the popular "Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement"...
I don't think closing a contract is a permanent thing. You can always reopen it or start a new one if and when the complaints have been addressed. That seems to be what most people have in mind, at least in my experience.
Is he not free to do that? I mean you can agree with it or not but how is that not a perfectly valid thing for a private individual to do? I don't have a philosophical objection to this.
Young is saying "I have some number of people who listen to my content and if you want to distribute my content you have to do this thing". Spotify said "no thank you". Where's the problem?
I do not know the nuances of free speech doctrines. I'll take your word. Assume all tech companies de-platform Joe Rogan fearing retribution from other customers
He buys a Ubuntu box to host the videos. And now he needs a static IP and a domain name. Are DNS providers considered in association to Joe Rogan's speech if they sell him a domain name?
Seems to be true going by the assumption that DNS providers are tech companies. If so, should the DNS providers decide not to sell Joe Rogan a domain name fearing retribution from other customers, and as a consequence Joe Rogan is practically NOT visible on the internet at all to any reasonable person, isn't that not in the spirit of free speech?
It is not in the spirit of free speech. The internet is the modern printing press. Anyone who can buy, rent, or borrow a printing press to speak his mind should have the right to do so.
No, it’s “then invisible hand of the market”. Neil Young is removing his product from a marketplace he disagrees with. This is exactly what people keep saying we should be doing to affect change, let our wallets speak. Except when they don’t like it. The truth is that boycotts are ridiculously common across the political spectrum and throughout history.
The trouble with Joe Rogan is that he tends to invite people on who agree with his existing worldview (in this case, vaccine skepticism), and he tends not to challenge them whatsoever, so they are allowed to spout whatever nonsense with zero pushback. I don’t think this is out of malice by the way, I think he just doesn’t realise they’re spreading misinformation.
I hate Spotify's recommendation algorithm for podcasts, if you can even call it that. Why does it think I want to listen to Joe Rogan and Jordan f-ing Peterson. Or any of the podcasts about drugs. I've never listened to any podcasts using their app, so is it based on the music I listen to, or do they recommend that crap to everyone? Jordan Peterson! Do they think he's what the average person likes? It's twisted! Worse is they've been showing the same few recommendations to me for years now. What makes them think today is the day I'm going to magically decide to start streaming them?
Based on the recent Stratechery Neil Young advocates against GMOs which is the “anti-science” position on that issue.
I think independent of my views on Rogan personally this kind of ultimatum to silence someone is just wrong. The free speech position is the principled one.
Spotify wouldn’t be in this position if they weren’t trying to aggregate podcast ownership and ruin the open ecosystem anyway. Still, if I were Spotify the move is to take the free speech position and tell these other people to fuck off (imo).
Young and Mitchell pulling their music is literally freedom of speech (free expression). Neil Young can do whatever he wants with his content (speech), just like Rogan. This is competition in the free marketplace of ideas.
You're absolutely entitled to your opinion on these actions and you're free to support Spotify or Young or Mitchell or any combination of the three. But there is no "freedom of speech" side here.
I view it as a freedom of speech issue because one side is advocating for another side to be silenced. These musicians aren’t just pulling their content - they’re trying to use power to shut someone else down. To me that is clearly a freedom of speech issue.
"I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines – potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them ... They can have Rogan or Young. Not both."
I read this as if you want me get rid of him, but I’ll paste it here for clarity. Others may see it differently.
You left out the important part. "I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform". Probably he would reconsider if they dropped Rogan. He didn't expect it or ask.
> If he is uncomfortable sharing the platform so wants to remove his music fine, I’d just say that without the “you can’t have both of us” implication.
I don’t think pulling his music is effective in persuading people he wants to persuade (likely this stunt has the opposite effect), but I also think it’s better to engage in good faith than just argue to suppress speech.
You can’t always if the other party won’t engage in good faith, but from what I’ve seen of Rogan he does. Harder with cases like Brett Weinstein where I think engaging is a waste of time imo.
So there’s a pragmatic argument here about getting the outcome you want.
For the latter rather than pulling with a “me or him” framing. It is possible to reaffirm the shared freedom of speech yet saying you disagree and don’t want to share the platform directly (because it indirectly helps fund it). That’s probably what I’d do in that situation.
Not if I understand the chronology correctly. If I understand correctly (and I may not), Young gave his "me or Rogan" statement to Spotify (or maybe indirectly, simply making a public pronouncement). Spotify didn't pull Rogan's content, so a couple of days later, then Young pulled his content off of Spotify.
As I said, my understanding. And I haven't gone groveling through the back news items to prove it. Just my recollection of how I heard it reported over a few days.
Monday Young wrote a letter to his management and posted it on his blog briefly. It was what we quoted. Wednesday Spotify confirmed his music was being removed.
This is ridiculously disingenuous. He made an ultimatum, and his position is very clear.
This is too obvious to honestly debate. If his desire isn't for Spotify to remove/censor Rogan, I imagine he'll clarify. Because he's blatantly calling for it.
Young told his management to tell Spotify to remove his music. He didn't tell them to negotiate. Is your problem he said why he wanted his music removed?
"I support free speech. I have never been in favor of censorship. Private companies have the right to choose what they profit from, just as I can choose not to have my music support a platform that disseminates harmful information."[1]
Why shouldn't they? Forget the names and the details of this situation for a moment.
Spotify is a business that offers a catalog of content for a fee. Their value proposition is that they provide content people want to consume. Perhaps some content has fallen out of favor for some reason. Could be objectionable or just stale, public opinion is always shifting. If someone with more appealing content comes along and says "you have to get rid of that other thing in order to distribute my content" then how is there some moral choice Spotify has to make? They can do anything they want, and as a business they will probably choose based on what will make them money. This is a proxy for doing the thing that best aligns with their customer's interests. It is impossible for any one organization to satisfy everyone's opinions. This is literally the point of freedom of expression.
Well in this specific case a couple of easy reasons.
Rogan’s deal was $100M which is way more money than Young. So if it’s a business move than keeping Rogan is the obvious choice as he provides way more value to Spotify.
I care less about that though and more about the principled position here. In this case I think they’re the same.
And I don't think your principles are sound. We are also participating in a marketplace of ideas. I'm not buying what you are selling. You are free to continue as you are, as am I.
I think private companies/platforms are able to exercise their speech in order to decide who is or isn’t on them.
Keeping or removing Rogan is an exercise of their speech and within their right to decide.
Still, I think it’s generally a bad idea to remove someone because of this kind of pressure. In Rogan’s specific case I also think it would be the wrong decision.
I’m against internet cancel mobs as a general rule.
> Still, I think it’s generally a bad idea to remove someone because of this kind of pressure.
I can't agree with this in general. I can imagine a situation where it may be reasonable so I wouldn't tie my hands. In fact making this decision on a case by case basis is the business Spotify is in.
> In Rogan’s specific case I also think it would be the wrong decision.
Sure but that's just this case, it's not a fundamental question of freedom of expression. This is what I mean when I say "there is no freedom of speech position". Literally everyone involved including Spotify, Rogan, Young, Mitchell, you, me, and anyone who reads and decides to reply or not is exercising their right to free expression.
We are triggering HN's flamewar algorithm so this is my last reply. I have not argued the merits of this case at all. I don't really care about it to be honest. You supported your opinions on this case in terms of being in favor of freedom of speech. I don't think that is a sound framing. You have stated opinions as is your right, that doesn't mean whoever disagrees with you opposes freedom of speech in any way.
What’s the difference between being against what they’re doing and boycotting a product? Both involve the withdrawal of participating in that business’ ecosystem as an act of protest. To continue to involve oneself with that business is to tacitly approve what that business does and doesn’t do. How does that rub you the wrong way?
Of course anyone who believes in freedom of speech would agree that Young and Mitchell have the right to pull their music. That doesn’t change the fact that one can disagree with that decision.
Why not? I can say "dang should ban beerandt or I will stop posting" (I don't believe this and I am not making such a claim). dang can do whatever he wants in response, including nothing at all. HN is free to downvote me or say they disagree, or not. That's the competitive marketplace of ideas. If you offer something unappealing it will fail.
> Spotify didn't give into demands to censor.
Censorship is a loaded term in conversations about freedom of speech, especially in the United States. IMHO Spotify, Young, Mitchell and Rogan are incapable of censorship in the first amendment sense because they are not government entities.
It is your free expression to make that argument, but the argument itself is against free expression.
>incapable of censorship
That's a mighty narrow definition of censorship. (I didn't say government censorship or even mention the 1st amendment.)
What is it that you would call Young's implied request to Spotify, if not an ultimatum to censor? Especially given the context that his demand is founded on opposing the content of Rogan's speech, and that he is attempting to leverage an authoritative power (Spotify) to unilaterally remove Rogan's published media and prevent it's distribution.
Sure there is; Young and Mitchell have made an active decision to shutdown their own speech or the speech of another. The difference is taking an action against another vs taking an action against yourself.
I am sure that you will agree that determining your own outcome is freedom but forcing an outcome for others is oppression.
They are not shutting down their speech. They are exercising it by choosing who to associate with. The first amendment does not protect you from the actions of other private parties, it protects you from the government. I realize this is a cliche but it is critical to understand. Freedom of speech means you can say "I don't like what that person says and they shouldn't say it." And everyone else is free to agree with you or not.
> The first amendment does not protect you from the actions of other private parties, it protects you from the government.
Nobody in this thread was talking about the First Amendment. The concept of freedom of speech is much broader than its particular realization in US constitutional law.
> Young and Mitchell pulling their music is literally freedom of speech (free expression).
Yes, they can protest. But they can't demand to shut up others (Rogan) which is what they seem to be doing.
Personally, people should double down on their protest, hope others join against Joe Rogan's batshit insane science.
But, I will never stand behind people wanting to deny him the exact rights they're exercising. Young and others are doing exactly that. Isn't it bullying?
You are half right! (I didn't write the text you challenged). But I did misread the OP's comments. He does make that claim. Clearly Joe could pull his content if he wanted.
There is. Rogan is not trying to remove Neil Young's music from anywhere.
I've heard this unfruitful line of argument too often recently. Besides being unfruitful, I think it is based on a subtle fallacy/diversion.
The idea of free expression reasonably includes the right to criticize the principle itself. For example, in the US, you absolutely have the legal right to criticize the First Amendment. However, by doing so you would rightly be labelled as being against free expression.
If you like free expression, I think you should be cheering for Spotify and Rogan in this case.
Young wasn't trying to remove Rogan's music. He was exercising his positive liberty, to act as he wanted: which was to not be on a platform with people he perceived as ultra-shitty & socially-ruinous.
Young had (nearly) no expectation of causing change. There's a possibility he thought this really would, right now, have enacted change, but I highly doubt he was so deluded. Young simply knew he couldn't be party to such a system, and said he was unwilling to remain affiliated with it in it's current dangerous fallen state.
I very much disagree. We could be a bit more accurate/pedantic by saying "he's trying to mount pressure to remove Rogan's podcast from Spotify" instead, but that doesn't change much.
> not be on a platform with people he perceived as ultra-shitty & socially-ruinous.
I cancelled my Spotify a long time ago, but I don't think it's much of a social platform. If you don't want to interact with Rogan, you simply can. I think you could even mute an artist, so Spotify wouldn't even suggest their content to you.
whether or not Spotify is a social platform is irrelevant. Young didn't want to be involved with a business so directly supporting & fostering his/our worlds foes.
Imagine a TV network hosting a show called neo-nazis throwing eggs at Jews at 8pm, and then you at 9pm for an important discussion on your favourite subject.
You’d have every right to rethink your association with that platform, and demand they not air the neo-nazis if they want to have you on.
This is not about free speech. It’s about freedom of association. You can’t force Neil Young to be associated with Joe Rogan if he doesn’t want to, and you can’t argue he doesn’t have a right to tell Spotify they can’t have both of them.
> You're absolutely entitled to your opinion on these actions and you're free to support Spotify or Young or Mitchell or any combination of the three. But there is no "freedom of speech" side here.
I'm not sure I agree. Young and Mitchell (how many decades ago were they culturally relevant?) are certainly free to participate on Spotify or not. They certainly cannot be forced to. However, if Rogan were booted from Spotify based on their threats (or others), he would certainly be a loser.
Further, if someone demands a second party take some action against a third party by making a quid pro quo threat, that is not clearly protected speech. If the threat involves revealing defamatory information, it constitutes blackmail; if the threat involves criminal harm, it is extortion; and if the threat involves breach of contract, it may be tortious interference, a civil tort. This is not to argue that Mitchell & Young are committing a crime, because they clearly aren't (though they may possibly be perpetrating a civil tort against Rogan depending on his contractual terms with Spotify and their demands), but that threats are not necessarily protected speech in the same category as merely making–or withholding–personal self-expression.
> Not as artists that have anything currently to say, though. We're talking about them as people who are trying to keep someone else from talking.
We're talking about them as people who just said something.
Young sold half his music rights for $150 million last year. He signed a deal with SiriusXM within days after he left Spotify. Mitchell won a Grammy in 2016 and was nominated this year. Their music continued to be relevant to someone obviously.
I was wrong and stand corrected: it is not a threat.
What Young said is more of an opening offer of a quid pro quo.
The overall point I was making stands, that freedom of speech (both the legal protection and the ethical principle) does not extend to coercive speech like it does to persuasive and expressive speech.
If some artist simply said, "Take my music off of Spotify because I have no confidence in the platform," then that would clearly be fully protected. If another said, "Spotify has until Feb 1 to remove Joe Rogan, or I'm pulling my catalog until they do," I think that'd be a lot more risky, especially if the artist had prominence.
When people say "freedom of speech", they're referencing (sometimes unknowingly) hundreds of years of discussion in philosophy, politics, etc. A big part of that debate is whether censorship of so-called "bad" ideas is a good thing or a bad thing for "the public".
One side here is trying to pressure, commercially and via public opinion, a big platform. They're trying to pressure this platform to not publish certain information because it is "bad". Of course they have a right to do so! But I think it should be fairly clear that they are the side that is "against" freedom of speech, because they are literally against Spotify publishing certain information.
What's more, this isn't happening without context. This is happening in a world in which there is a lively debate happening around whether platforms should be liable for content that they allow to be published, in a world in which increasingly people are hesitant to associate with other people for voicing opinions they don't like.
Money. Money is the most important thing in this discussion. Spotify is not merely providing information in the classical sense, they have decided to massively invest in Joe Rogan. To signal that their podcasting efforts are centred around his dangerous entertainment product. It’s absolutely reasonable to consider this bad form, and wish for Spotify to revise.
Would we have this discussion about free speech if Spotify invested 100 million in a neo-nazi? No, we’d be appalled about the money.
My understanding of the GMO debate is that there are two kinds of GMO development: there's GMO for the purposes of making crops themselves hardier, more nutritious, etc., and then there's GMO for the purposes of making crops more resistant to novel pesticides, herbicides, etc. The agricultural industry likes to conflate the two, since the latter is much harder to defend.
I have no idea what Neil Young actually believes (and I don't especially care), but I do know that it's possible to be pro-GMO (or even just neutral) in the first sense and anti-GMO in the latter sense. And that's the position that I've seen otherwise scientifically informed people take.
(This is ignoring some other reasonable responses, such as "what do GMOs have to do with Spotify?" and "why do you think that being anti-GMO makes you anti-science?", but there are only so many hours in the day.)
There are also other pro science reasons to be against GMO crops. A couple example. GMO based industrial farms grow monocultures that ultimately reduce the variety of foods people traditionally grew and ate, leading to less varied diets and loss of culture. GMO crops also have yields that are unsustainably high, leading to disruption of water cycles (see Ogalalla aquifer depletion).
It has to do with speech, that people often hold stupid positions that are not aligned with the truth but we don’t usually demand that they’re silenced. [0]
The GMO case was an example of a position Young may hold that is likely political and wrong. There are many examples across the political spectrum.
[0] I’d argue this is because as a society we understand the risks here with speech restriction leading to less truth on net.
Well they're in the seed selling business and make seeds that can survive being sprayed with herbicide. Farmers agree not to save the seed when they purchase them. But no one is forcing them to buy those seeds, they could buy different ones and use different and less effective herbicides. The one guy they drug into court was not only saving them, he was reselling them to other farmers which seems like a straightforward violation of the agreement he signed.
This isn't true. Those seeds produce fertile plants that reproduce with plants from surrounding farms and farmers are prevented for saving those seeds. I don't know what you mean by "one guy" as they do it all the time in India from what I've read.
> Those seeds produce fertile plants that reproduce with plants from surrounding and farmers are prevented for saving those seeds.
This isn't true. While they do cross pollinate, farmers aren't being sued for picking up some stray genes, this is a myth.[1][2] They seem like total assholes, but there's no evidence that they're suing people who are accidentally picking up the roundup ready genes. Every case I could find where a farmer claims that, they're able to show that the farmer in question intentionally selected those crops, replanted entire fields with those seeds, and were often selling them to neighbors.
> I don't know what you mean by "one guy"
I'm referring to the famous case in the US that made it's way into a Netflix documentary.
> Every case I could find where a farmer claims that, they're able to show that the farmer in question intentionally selected those crops, replanted entire fields with those seeds, and were often selling them to neighbors.
As I said, there are many cases in India that it seems you're not aware of [1]. Who would have guessed a multinational corporation would win in court against peasants the world over... It's not just Monsanto either [2].
Th first article about India not allowing the seed until after people started buying them on the grey market, after Monsanto withdrew an application over a royalty dispute with the Indian government. Monsanto didn't sue any farmer there.
The second article is about farmers intentionally planting the potatoes and refusing to stop as part of a settlement deal that offered them either purchasing contracts or asked them to simply stop.
Neither of these is an example of an agro-tech company suing farmers for accidentally growing patented seeds. Did you read the articles?
First, that's moving the goalpost. Second, "who would have guessed a multinational corporation would win in court against peasants the world over..." You're just repeating their side of the story.
The whole thing was about who they were actually suing. My original claim was that it’s a myth that they sue people for accidentally planting the seeds. If people choose to illegally buy and plant the patented seeds, then they should expect legal trouble.
I’m not actually a fan of these gene patents, but I don’t have a lot of sympathy for people trying to use them on the cheap then pretending to take an anti GMO stance when they get caught.
Neil Young doesn't have a GMO podcast nor any kind of political show on Spotify, nor is opposition to GMO technology an immediate grave threat to public health. Your point is completely irrelevant.
GMO crops are exactly not "garbage hormones", and people consume them all of the time without complaint. I don't see anyone picketing the yogurt cases in their local super markets. Lot's of hormones survive intact through digestion and can enter the blood stream, but your body doesn't absorb the genetic material of food[1]. DNA is fragile and it's really hard to get foreign DNA into a cell, much less the nucleus. Our cells evolved a lot of specific defenses to prevent that. This is why DNA vaccines are so hard to develop and administer. Conflating things like rbST or rBGH in milk with novel genes in corn is nothing but scientific illiteracy.
TL;DR it's really hard to get DNA into eukaryotic cells (yours) and you definitely can't do that with food.
> Conflating things like rbST or rBGH in milk with novel genes in corn is nothing but scientific illiteracy.
Yeah, so what? Nobody said anything else. It's still "a trust issue not a 'science' one", because most people are scientifically illiterate and probably always will be. To make a majority trust science (again [?]) in stead of distrusting it will have to be done by some other means than educating everyone into scientists.
>nor is opposition to GMO technology an immediate grave threat to public health
The complete lack of awareness of the hypocrisy is why it's relevant.
If you took crop GMO, got rid of the one-time gene modification, but instead, started growing the unmodified plant...
and then just directly injected those modified genes such that billions of cells began expressing/building proteins from the modified genes...
...you'd end up with almost exactly the mRNA vaccine technology. (Well, if it worked on plants.)
But the 100% plant process that doesn’t rely on in-situ gene transfer or modification is dangerous to grow and eat,
while the viral process that involves intentional gene transfer into human cells, and said cells manufacturing the very part of the
virus that makes it so effective at cellular invasion...is unquestionably safe to inject?
That's why opposition to GMO is relevant. It's completely contradictory and heretical to question the science of one while faithfully crusading for the other.
here is why people don't like GMOs. it has nothing to do with the genetic modification. it is due to the rationale by which GMOs are used in the US, which are exactly: 1. to allow much greater use of herbicides 2. to allow much greater use of pesticides 3. to allow seeds to be patented and subject to license fees such that control of the food supply is handed over to multinational corporations.
now you can get into debating that glyophosphate is just fine and you could just drink a whole jar of it no problem (yeah right) and all that, you could get into how it's just fine if there's no more seeds available to humanity that don't come with license fees, but that's what the actual debate is about.
Free speech? On a platform that is explicitly designed for profit? Despite knowing the story about how wealth and money works and how class mobility is essentially non existent?
Americans and American-lite people have just adopted this weird view on free speech that doesn't really make sense when you actually realize it's all about wealth and money.
fReeDoM oF sPeeCh is so ridiculous but 10x in this situation. This has nothing to do with freedom of speech, this has to do with not backing a platform that is ok with misinformation. Rogan isn't a guy that wants all sides heard, he's just trying to get even more rich than he currently is. He knows his audience and he caters to them no matter the ethical cost.
Neil Young doesn't want to be associated with it. This is as much about freedom of speech as Fox News cutting off people who go off agenda.
I like Joni Mitchell and Neil Young. However, if I didn't, I simply wouldn't listen to them. Which is exactly what I do with Joe Rogan. I tried his show, it wasn't for me.
It's interesting that Joni Mitchell also promotes controversial and unrecognized medical information, such as "Morgellons Disease"
> The 71-year-old singer first discussed her battle with Morgellons in a 2010 interview with the Los Angeles Times, telling them she had “this weird, incurable disease that seems like it’s from outer space.” Her vivid description left many fans concerned: “Fibers in a variety of colors protrude out of my skin like mushrooms after a rainstorm: they cannot be forensically identified as animal, vegetable or mineral.”
> Some doctors recognize the condition as a delusional infestation and treat it with cognitive behavioral therapy, antidepressants, antipsychotic drugs and counseling. Others think the symptoms are related to an infectious process in skin cells. Further study is needed.
And Neil Young isn't without controversial opinions that go "against science" on issues ranging from GMOs (he's against them), to the benefits of super-high-resolution digital audio files (he's for them).
Just a side note to say that absolutely everyone who claims to suffer from Morgellons Disease, as she at one point did claim, is struggling with significant mental illness and should probably be treated with some kindness on that point. It's not news that Joni Mitchell has had significant mental health challenges in her life.
It doesn't make her wrong about the benefits of vaccination.
It's not really comparable with Neil Young's GMO position (which I concede is partly unscientific).
It’s hilarious to me to watch the counter-culture heroes of my youth turn into establishment apologists. I suspect it’s the “anything for attention” syndrome.
Perhaps but there is no parallel between the polio and the COVID vaccine. The former reduced the incidence of polio by more than 99% while the latter, well it does not.
And exactly how big does the gap need to be before they stop being comparable? We can compare 99% effective vaccines and 98% effective vaccines, surely? so a 1% spread is ok... but a 10% spread and now we're in "no parallel" territory?
No, it's the "the counter culture grew up and became the establishment" syndrome. That's how one can seem to have switched camps without changing one's values at all.
My biggest issue is that Spotify is prioritizing podcasts over music, and I'm not paying them for podcasts. I decided to switch to Tidal as they pay artists a much more fair share and focus on the music.
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."
Joni and Neil can do whatever they want and I respect that. What bothers me are all of the virtue signalers following them and getting rid of Spotify (or claiming to).
You will not be able to consume anything if you actually care about these standards. Everyone is shitty and people are wrong all the time. Good luck finding a blameless company to buy all your stuff from. Not to mention all of the musicians who have no doubt done bad things and made poor choices.
If you don't like Joe Rogan, don't listen to him. I don't see why people feel the need to fucking ban Spotify.
In fairness the amount of money these artists are making from spotify and they are retired makes it really easy to drop spotify. Surprised they agreed to join in the first place.
How to Break up with Spotify, by Violet Blue https://www.patreon.com/posts/how-to-break-up-61760779 This article explains how to remove your linked apps and devices from Spotify, and transfer your library to a different service.
An ironic detail about the positions they're staking is that one of the pieces of misinformation that Rogan was accused of spreading was speculating about whether covid escaped from a lab where it has been enhanced. Subsequently, the WHO endorsed investigating that possibility. What if it's found to be true? Are they also opposed to talking about true information before it gets approved by their preferred authorities? That's a repressive and anti-science attitude.
By the way, as scientifically illiterate as Joe Rogan is, Neil young and Joanie Mitchell are not very hard working and really won the lottery, but at least they're not encouraging the disenfranchised to avoid vaccines against disease.
I wonder if Rogan propagates vaccine misinformation, who prevents government healthcare officials to come to the show and tell his multimillion audience what exactly is wrong?
I suppose this is rhetorical, but to answer anyway - joe rogan prevents that. He’s in charge of who he has on as guests.
But even if he did, I suspect his ideology is such that scientific knowledge is de-valued over anti-establishment takes, and so nobody would listen to that healthcare expert. Because it’s not like his listeners haven’t heard that vaccines are effective - they just believe him as a source more than they believe any expert
He has Sanjay Gupta on, a well known doctor that supports vaccination. Even Gupta couldn’t make a firm argument that everyone must get vaxxed, even with the fact checking in real time
Did you just move the goalpost? All you need to make a firm argument for is that “getting vaxxed is safe, protects you, and protects others” not “everyone must get vaxxed” - nobody can make that argument - there are too many people unable to get the vaccine for valid medical reasons.
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[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 263 ms ] threadEdit: Too late now to save myself from downvote land, but I just spoke poorly. I meant it shouldn't be tolerated in the form of Spotify acquiescing to the demands. Obviously the artists can do whatever they want.
[0] Kind of
I do not condone censorship and I’m more concerned about the surgeon general suggesting that Spotify should censor Joe Rogan but these actions are also falling in the lines of free expression, which should be protected.
I wonder if Mr. Young will apply the same moral stringency to the rest of his distributors. I also wonder if his fans are aware of his own unscientific misinformation campaigns in regards to GMO foods.
I think most wonder - where does it end? What heterodox positions are tolerated and which ones aren’t? Especially in the context of something like a broad based music distributor.
For example, there are a number of artists who seem to glorify killing police. Should we consider it normal that big time artist XYZ would feel the need to remove their music from the service? Yes, it would be their right (I don't think anyone disputes that)... but... is that a good cultural trend?
To my eyes, this looks more like tribalistic posturing than some sort of principled stand for something.
But to try and answer your question; no, I think it's kind of silly. Someone like Neil Young can only do this sort of thing once and trying to use it to deplatform another entertainer doesn't seem to be the most useful (removing Joe Rogan's podcast or whatever won't make a dent in the cause he supposedly is fighting for) and also not particularly effective unless there is a cataclysm of high profile musicians removing their music from Spotify.
I know less about the plight of farmers being forced to use GM seed, but I am intimately familiar with the decimation of insect life in the last decade.
A couple of old, out of touch rich people throwing a tantrum because they have to share a club with a loud gregarious buffoon that's wildly popular with others.
They are both survivors of childhood polio, making a very timely point about vaccinations.
[downvoted for this? really?]
They are simply deciding that they don't want to share a platform with Joe Rogan. Neil Young made it clear it's an either/or; Spotify went with "or". Their prerogative on both sides.
Yep. They are both Canadian.
I mean, a lot has been said on Rogan's podcast over the years. Not all of it is likely to be correct. Even if we restrict ourselves to considering topics related to the Sars-Cov-2 epidemic, Rogan has spoken to many people, about many aspects of the situation.
I for one, quite enjoy his podcast. He speaks to many, varied very interesting and intelligent people, on range of topics. Politicians, scientists, doctors, special operators, hunters, actors, comedians, philosophers, ethicists.
But Joni Mitchell & Neil Young want Spotify to remove him from Spotify, because they disagree with something (or things) that was said on his podcast? And everyone agrees that this is a sound and reasonable thing?
(Artists in physical media can still distribute their work across many galleries - or "platforms")
Pulling their music from Spotify is speech. Why can they _not_ do it? What makes what they are doing a "horrible precedent"?
Both of them simply asserted their right not to share a platform with someone they believe is doing significant harm. They owe him and their (Spotify's) customers nothing in particular.
It'll either work out for them and they'll get what they want, or it won't.
And speaking of parroting, I'll agree that much of what joe and by proxy his guests say is dangerous. Where we disagree is whether or not these things are "untrue" and to whom they are dangerous towards.
There are plenty of examples through history of mass speech overturning things.
And there are plenty of boycotts organised by both left and right wing media the world over.
In the last four or five years, Trump urged boycotts of MLB, Coke, Goodyear, AT&T, Delta, JP Morgan Chase, Viacom, Merck, Cisco the NFL.
Trump _supporters_ (major and minor) have urged boycotts of Meetup, Nike, Nordstrom, Starbucks, Netflix, Pepsi, Nabisco, Anheuser Busch, Amazon, Ben & Jerry's, Apple, Ford, Bank of America... and Tucker Carlson is currently nursing very public hurt feelings about anthropomorphic chocolate CGI characters.
This stuff happens. It's how change of all kinds happens. It shouldn't be surprising if it is aimed at Joe Rogan, since he's so fond of being outspoken.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
-- On the other hand what does this people want? Like I have 3 shots, I have done whatever the government and science asked, I did the first 2 booster and I've listened to the campaign where they said that it would lead us to be open and live again, then we went again in lockdown closed inside (I'm european), despite the vast majority having the vaccines (85%++), Then there was a third shot, now they're talking about the fourth one, meanwhile people still goes to ICU and people is still dying, and still getting infected (100k a day), I want to understand science and politicians, but at this point can we just like following blindly whatever is said and maybe start asking some questions? Can we start having some doubts about effectiveness of meds and/or measures or we just need to keep silent?
https://nassimtaleb.org/2016/08/intolerant-wins-dictatorship...
About Neil Young not being willing to participate along with other people, I would appreciate more Neil Young to go to participate with people and counter-argumenting their ideas with words, instead of being a little kid acting like "Gne gne gne I don't want to talk to you, teacher please can you send him out of the class?", I mean we're adult and capable of expressing complex ideas and counter-arguments, there's no need to running away, imho, but he's free all he wants to be a kid, just let's not consider him a paladine of anything
These artists are attempting to use pressure to silence someone else. That's 100% a "free speech" issue.
Quoted word by word from the article: "Last Monday, Young announced that he had asked his management and record label to remove his music from Spotify in protest of the streaming service's decision to host Joe Rogan's podcast"
If that doesn't mean that he wants to ban Joe Rogan from spotify, then what does it mean?
But, that's precisely what Young is not doing. He wants to silence (and deny the FoS) Rogan. That is the distinction that keeps being ignored in this thread and elsewhere.
If you create your own newspaper, Spotify or YouTube you also control its editorial policy (what gets selected for publication, what gets taken down). But you can not demand that the New York Times, Spotify or Google change their editorial policy to let you publish your views. Access is a privilege, not a right.
What Young is doing here is calling in question Spotify's editorial policy for giving Rogan such a visible position on the platform. He is within his rights to do so. IF Spotify had removed Rogan instead, Rogan would need to find a new publisher but his FoS would not have been violated at any point.
Like what? I feel like almost everyone parroting this accusation against Joe Rogan doesn’t actually listen to his podcast.
There’s so much discussion of Joe Rogan and the problem of what he’s actually said is curiously, conspicuously missing from the conversation.
“This doctor was saying ivermectin is 99 percent effective in treating Covid, but you don’t hear about it because you can’t fund vaccines when it’s an effective treatment”
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/covid-misi...
No responsible doctor said that -- it's a two-part untruth. First off, there's not the evidence to support the 99% claim. Second, it's not really particularly evident that an effective treatment for a disease has much impact on a search for a vaccine; there are effective treatments for HIV but the search for a vaccine continues, for example.
It's dangerous to make claims like that without evidence.
Bonus content:
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/joe-rogan-...
Free speech all the way around.
Interesting capitalization choice. Intentional?
It is hassle to manage your own files on all your devices.I would rather i had app like Spotify but streaming files owned by me.
I was hoping for a streaming server(and clients) I suppose!, which maybe also fetches podcasts and also maybe does audiobooks and perhaps manage buying from stores which supports DRM free content downloads.
Sadly no clients for android. I have a mix of Linux , OSX Android and iOS, I won't be able to use in half of them! but given podcasts and other itunes features i suppose this best out of the box solution out there.
When Grooveshark went offline without notice, I was lucky to have some offline songs on Android and some localStorage in the browser (and the skills to retrieve it). I don't want that to happen again, I lost quite a bit of music there, so I back this up now. At first I used a self-made a Spotify API client; later I found another tool to do this with: https://github.com/watsonbox/exportify
Not a comment on the Rogen or the moral aspect of this move, just the money.
He is 76 years old and worth $200M. I don't think he cares much about money at this point.
I think that is probably right in terms of stuff you can spend. What he probably does care about is relevance and a sense of importance. If you look at anyone with that kind of money, they've got more than they can spend, more than their family and grandchildren can meaningfully spend and yet frequently they don't stop working at their business. One rich guy in Australia a few decades ago made that point and said he considered money from his deals as a substitute for applause.
I strongly doubt Neil Young would be willing to take up a public position that involved a real sacrifice on his part, where he was rejected by the orthodoxy of his tribe. He's had plenty of opportunity to take a strong position and hasn't until this one which will probably lose him very, very few admirers. I could be wrong about that and he could prove me so too.
https://themusicessentials.com/news/daniel-ek-e100-million-i... (spotify ceo investing in AI weapons company).
While Tidal’s app is a little rough around the edges, and their auto-playlist stuff isn’t quite as smart, it has a solid catalogue and i’m pretty happy with it.
There seems to be a whole middleman ecosystem pasting together playlist APIs from different services for people migrating around. Tidal links to one but does not do the import themselves.
I'm surprised there are so many and they all feel like gatekeeping and upsell are their patterns.
As I recall, the Supreme Court has consistently recognized the freedom of association as a core component of free speech. And that seems to be what's happening.
EDIT: I'm being downvoted to oblivion for stating an objective fact. This is unbecoming of HN. I'm out.
But the history of the word "boycott" in the US has a distinctly anti-racial hue, and people who yammer about deplatforming seem to take extreme pains to avoid any comparison between today's boycotts and those good old lunch counters.
Young is saying "I have some number of people who listen to my content and if you want to distribute my content you have to do this thing". Spotify said "no thank you". Where's the problem?
He buys a Ubuntu box to host the videos. And now he needs a static IP and a domain name. Are DNS providers considered in association to Joe Rogan's speech if they sell him a domain name?
Seems to be true going by the assumption that DNS providers are tech companies. If so, should the DNS providers decide not to sell Joe Rogan a domain name fearing retribution from other customers, and as a consequence Joe Rogan is practically NOT visible on the internet at all to any reasonable person, isn't that not in the spirit of free speech?
I think independent of my views on Rogan personally this kind of ultimatum to silence someone is just wrong. The free speech position is the principled one.
Spotify wouldn’t be in this position if they weren’t trying to aggregate podcast ownership and ruin the open ecosystem anyway. Still, if I were Spotify the move is to take the free speech position and tell these other people to fuck off (imo).
You're absolutely entitled to your opinion on these actions and you're free to support Spotify or Young or Mitchell or any combination of the three. But there is no "freedom of speech" side here.
What I find distasteful is the framing of “Rogan or me” as a way to pressure Spotify to pull Rogan from the platform.
Sure Spotify could do that, but they shouldn’t.
I read this as if you want me get rid of him, but I’ll paste it here for clarity. Others may see it differently.
If he is uncomfortable sharing the platform so wants to remove his music fine, I’d just say that without the “you can’t have both of us” implication.
Why not?
> If he is uncomfortable sharing the platform so wants to remove his music fine, I’d just say that without the “you can’t have both of us” implication.
The 1st part implies the 2nd.
You can’t always if the other party won’t engage in good faith, but from what I’ve seen of Rogan he does. Harder with cases like Brett Weinstein where I think engaging is a waste of time imo.
So there’s a pragmatic argument here about getting the outcome you want.
For the latter rather than pulling with a “me or him” framing. It is possible to reaffirm the shared freedom of speech yet saying you disagree and don’t want to share the platform directly (because it indirectly helps fund it). That’s probably what I’d do in that situation.
As I said, my understanding. And I haven't gone groveling through the back news items to prove it. Just my recollection of how I heard it reported over a few days.
This is ridiculously disingenuous. He made an ultimatum, and his position is very clear. This is too obvious to honestly debate. If his desire isn't for Spotify to remove/censor Rogan, I imagine he'll clarify. Because he's blatantly calling for it.
"I support free speech. I have never been in favor of censorship. Private companies have the right to choose what they profit from, just as I can choose not to have my music support a platform that disseminates harmful information."[1]
[1] https://neilyoungarchives.com/news/1/article?id=Spotify-More...
Spotify is a business that offers a catalog of content for a fee. Their value proposition is that they provide content people want to consume. Perhaps some content has fallen out of favor for some reason. Could be objectionable or just stale, public opinion is always shifting. If someone with more appealing content comes along and says "you have to get rid of that other thing in order to distribute my content" then how is there some moral choice Spotify has to make? They can do anything they want, and as a business they will probably choose based on what will make them money. This is a proxy for doing the thing that best aligns with their customer's interests. It is impossible for any one organization to satisfy everyone's opinions. This is literally the point of freedom of expression.
Rogan’s deal was $100M which is way more money than Young. So if it’s a business move than keeping Rogan is the obvious choice as he provides way more value to Spotify.
I care less about that though and more about the principled position here. In this case I think they’re the same.
Keeping or removing Rogan is an exercise of their speech and within their right to decide.
Still, I think it’s generally a bad idea to remove someone because of this kind of pressure. In Rogan’s specific case I also think it would be the wrong decision.
I’m against internet cancel mobs as a general rule.
I can't agree with this in general. I can imagine a situation where it may be reasonable so I wouldn't tie my hands. In fact making this decision on a case by case basis is the business Spotify is in.
> In Rogan’s specific case I also think it would be the wrong decision.
Sure but that's just this case, it's not a fundamental question of freedom of expression. This is what I mean when I say "there is no freedom of speech position". Literally everyone involved including Spotify, Rogan, Young, Mitchell, you, me, and anyone who reads and decides to reply or not is exercising their right to free expression.
In a practical sense, one side is arguing to suppress someone’s ability to speak/express themselves via a popular platform and one side is not.
"I will not defend your opinion, but I will defend your right to express it." Something along those lines.
With these actions,Joni and Neil are saying: "I will not defend your right to express them, in fact I will try to stop you from expressing it."
"I will not defend your opinion, but I will defend your right to express it." Something along those lines.
With these actions,Joni and Neil say: "I will not defend your right to express them, in fact I will try to stop you from expressing it."
Obviously, but that's not the topic at hand.
> I were Spotify the move is to take the free speech position
There is no "free speech position". Spotify, Rogan, Young, and Mitchell are all exercising their right to free expression here.
is not an argument for free expression.
It's free expression arguing against allowing others to exercise free expression.
>There is no "free speech position".
Who is Rogan trying to silence?
Spotify didn't give into demands to censor.
Those are free speech positions.
> Spotify didn't give into demands to censor.
Censorship is a loaded term in conversations about freedom of speech, especially in the United States. IMHO Spotify, Young, Mitchell and Rogan are incapable of censorship in the first amendment sense because they are not government entities.
It is your free expression to make that argument, but the argument itself is against free expression.
>incapable of censorship
That's a mighty narrow definition of censorship. (I didn't say government censorship or even mention the 1st amendment.)
What is it that you would call Young's implied request to Spotify, if not an ultimatum to censor? Especially given the context that his demand is founded on opposing the content of Rogan's speech, and that he is attempting to leverage an authoritative power (Spotify) to unilaterally remove Rogan's published media and prevent it's distribution.
I am sure that you will agree that determining your own outcome is freedom but forcing an outcome for others is oppression.
Nobody in this thread was talking about the First Amendment. The concept of freedom of speech is much broader than its particular realization in US constitutional law.
Yes, they can protest. But they can't demand to shut up others (Rogan) which is what they seem to be doing.
Personally, people should double down on their protest, hope others join against Joe Rogan's batshit insane science.
But, I will never stand behind people wanting to deny him the exact rights they're exercising. Young and others are doing exactly that. Isn't it bullying?
They did.
> But, I will never stand behind people wanting to deny him the exact rights they're exercising. Young and others are doing exactly that.
There is. Rogan is not trying to remove Neil Young's music from anywhere.
I've heard this unfruitful line of argument too often recently. Besides being unfruitful, I think it is based on a subtle fallacy/diversion.
The idea of free expression reasonably includes the right to criticize the principle itself. For example, in the US, you absolutely have the legal right to criticize the First Amendment. However, by doing so you would rightly be labelled as being against free expression.
If you like free expression, I think you should be cheering for Spotify and Rogan in this case.
Young had (nearly) no expectation of causing change. There's a possibility he thought this really would, right now, have enacted change, but I highly doubt he was so deluded. Young simply knew he couldn't be party to such a system, and said he was unwilling to remain affiliated with it in it's current dangerous fallen state.
I very much disagree. We could be a bit more accurate/pedantic by saying "he's trying to mount pressure to remove Rogan's podcast from Spotify" instead, but that doesn't change much.
> not be on a platform with people he perceived as ultra-shitty & socially-ruinous.
I cancelled my Spotify a long time ago, but I don't think it's much of a social platform. If you don't want to interact with Rogan, you simply can. I think you could even mute an artist, so Spotify wouldn't even suggest their content to you.
You’d have every right to rethink your association with that platform, and demand they not air the neo-nazis if they want to have you on.
This is not about free speech. It’s about freedom of association. You can’t force Neil Young to be associated with Joe Rogan if he doesn’t want to, and you can’t argue he doesn’t have a right to tell Spotify they can’t have both of them.
I'm not sure I agree. Young and Mitchell (how many decades ago were they culturally relevant?) are certainly free to participate on Spotify or not. They certainly cannot be forced to. However, if Rogan were booted from Spotify based on their threats (or others), he would certainly be a loser.
Further, if someone demands a second party take some action against a third party by making a quid pro quo threat, that is not clearly protected speech. If the threat involves revealing defamatory information, it constitutes blackmail; if the threat involves criminal harm, it is extortion; and if the threat involves breach of contract, it may be tortious interference, a civil tort. This is not to argue that Mitchell & Young are committing a crime, because they clearly aren't (though they may possibly be perpetrating a civil tort against Rogan depending on his contractual terms with Spotify and their demands), but that threats are not necessarily protected speech in the same category as merely making–or withholding–personal self-expression.
We're talking about them now.
> threats
They didn't threaten. Young directed his management to remove his music. Mitchell said she decided to remove hers. Is your problem they said why?
Not as artists that have anything currently to say, though. We're talking about them as people who are trying to keep someone else from talking.
We're talking about them as people who just said something.
Young sold half his music rights for $150 million last year. He signed a deal with SiriusXM within days after he left Spotify. Mitchell won a Grammy in 2016 and was nominated this year. Their music continued to be relevant to someone obviously.
I didn't say you didn't.
> I'll leave it up to you to decide if that constitutes a threat.
It doesn't. A threat is an signal of intent before an action. Young jumped to the action.
What Young said is more of an opening offer of a quid pro quo.
The overall point I was making stands, that freedom of speech (both the legal protection and the ethical principle) does not extend to coercive speech like it does to persuasive and expressive speech.
If some artist simply said, "Take my music off of Spotify because I have no confidence in the platform," then that would clearly be fully protected. If another said, "Spotify has until Feb 1 to remove Joe Rogan, or I'm pulling my catalog until they do," I think that'd be a lot more risky, especially if the artist had prominence.
Tortious interference requires the defendant's conduct was illegal in some other way apparently. In California at least.[1]
[1] https://www.bonalaw.com/insights/legal-resources/what-are-th...
I believe you're arguing semantics here.
When people say "freedom of speech", they're referencing (sometimes unknowingly) hundreds of years of discussion in philosophy, politics, etc. A big part of that debate is whether censorship of so-called "bad" ideas is a good thing or a bad thing for "the public".
One side here is trying to pressure, commercially and via public opinion, a big platform. They're trying to pressure this platform to not publish certain information because it is "bad". Of course they have a right to do so! But I think it should be fairly clear that they are the side that is "against" freedom of speech, because they are literally against Spotify publishing certain information.
What's more, this isn't happening without context. This is happening in a world in which there is a lively debate happening around whether platforms should be liable for content that they allow to be published, in a world in which increasingly people are hesitant to associate with other people for voicing opinions they don't like.
Would we have this discussion about free speech if Spotify invested 100 million in a neo-nazi? No, we’d be appalled about the money.
It’s always about the money.
I have no idea what Neil Young actually believes (and I don't especially care), but I do know that it's possible to be pro-GMO (or even just neutral) in the first sense and anti-GMO in the latter sense. And that's the position that I've seen otherwise scientifically informed people take.
(This is ignoring some other reasonable responses, such as "what do GMOs have to do with Spotify?" and "why do you think that being anti-GMO makes you anti-science?", but there are only so many hours in the day.)
The GMO case was an example of a position Young may hold that is likely political and wrong. There are many examples across the political spectrum.
[0] I’d argue this is because as a society we understand the risks here with speech restriction leading to less truth on net.
This isn't true. Those seeds produce fertile plants that reproduce with plants from surrounding farms and farmers are prevented for saving those seeds. I don't know what you mean by "one guy" as they do it all the time in India from what I've read.
This isn't true. While they do cross pollinate, farmers aren't being sued for picking up some stray genes, this is a myth.[1][2] They seem like total assholes, but there's no evidence that they're suing people who are accidentally picking up the roundup ready genes. Every case I could find where a farmer claims that, they're able to show that the farmer in question intentionally selected those crops, replanted entire fields with those seeds, and were often selling them to neighbors.
> I don't know what you mean by "one guy"
I'm referring to the famous case in the US that made it's way into a Netflix documentary.
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/10/18/163034053/to....
[2] https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2018/06/01/dissecting-cla...
As I said, there are many cases in India that it seems you're not aware of [1]. Who would have guessed a multinational corporation would win in court against peasants the world over... It's not just Monsanto either [2].
1. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-monsanto-idUSKCN1P5...
2. https://www.rt.com/news/457812-indian-farmers-pepsico-potato...
The second article is about farmers intentionally planting the potatoes and refusing to stop as part of a settlement deal that offered them either purchasing contracts or asked them to simply stop.
Neither of these is an example of an agro-tech company suing farmers for accidentally growing patented seeds. Did you read the articles?
First, that's moving the goalpost. Second, "who would have guessed a multinational corporation would win in court against peasants the world over..." You're just repeating their side of the story.
I’m not actually a fan of these gene patents, but I don’t have a lot of sympathy for people trying to use them on the cheap then pretending to take an anti GMO stance when they get caught.
Oh yes, lobbying, price gouging and all other means to force someone don't exist.
Almost Hobson's choice.
Young didn't justify his position with some appeal to science in the abstract, so not sure what this point is but whataboutism.
Whether you are or not, is it ok for people to decide to peace out from that platform and move to another one, based on their own beliefs?
Don't see where any silencing is occurring at all.
GMO panic is at the heart of a lot of COVID vaccine refusal, so I think it at least has a somewhat negative effect on public health.
it's a trust issue not a "science" one
TL;DR it's really hard to get DNA into eukaryotic cells (yours) and you definitely can't do that with food.
[1]https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170223102128.h...
Yeah, so what? Nobody said anything else. It's still "a trust issue not a 'science' one", because most people are scientifically illiterate and probably always will be. To make a majority trust science (again [?]) in stead of distrusting it will have to be done by some other means than educating everyone into scientists.
The complete lack of awareness of the hypocrisy is why it's relevant.
If you took crop GMO, got rid of the one-time gene modification, but instead, started growing the unmodified plant...
and then just directly injected those modified genes such that billions of cells began expressing/building proteins from the modified genes...
...you'd end up with almost exactly the mRNA vaccine technology. (Well, if it worked on plants.)
But the 100% plant process that doesn’t rely on in-situ gene transfer or modification is dangerous to grow and eat,
while the viral process that involves intentional gene transfer into human cells, and said cells manufacturing the very part of the virus that makes it so effective at cellular invasion...is unquestionably safe to inject?
That's why opposition to GMO is relevant. It's completely contradictory and heretical to question the science of one while faithfully crusading for the other.
now you can get into debating that glyophosphate is just fine and you could just drink a whole jar of it no problem (yeah right) and all that, you could get into how it's just fine if there's no more seeds available to humanity that don't come with license fees, but that's what the actual debate is about.
Americans and American-lite people have just adopted this weird view on free speech that doesn't really make sense when you actually realize it's all about wealth and money.
He will still have his free speech off Spotify. Don’t confuse freedom of speech with freedom of promotion.
Neil Young doesn't want to be associated with it. This is as much about freedom of speech as Fox News cutting off people who go off agenda.
It's interesting that Joni Mitchell also promotes controversial and unrecognized medical information, such as "Morgellons Disease"
See: https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/morgellons-diseas...
> The 71-year-old singer first discussed her battle with Morgellons in a 2010 interview with the Los Angeles Times, telling them she had “this weird, incurable disease that seems like it’s from outer space.” Her vivid description left many fans concerned: “Fibers in a variety of colors protrude out of my skin like mushrooms after a rainstorm: they cannot be forensically identified as animal, vegetable or mineral.”
and https://www.mayoclinic.org/morgellons-disease/art-20044996#:....
From the Mayo Clinic:
> Some doctors recognize the condition as a delusional infestation and treat it with cognitive behavioral therapy, antidepressants, antipsychotic drugs and counseling. Others think the symptoms are related to an infectious process in skin cells. Further study is needed.
And Neil Young isn't without controversial opinions that go "against science" on issues ranging from GMOs (he's against them), to the benefits of super-high-resolution digital audio files (he's for them).
It doesn't make her wrong about the benefits of vaccination.
It's not really comparable with Neil Young's GMO position (which I concede is partly unscientific).
Spotify is showing a podcast UI in the app, even though I'm not interested.
Spotify is trying to corner podcasts which is a thriving, free, relatively decentralized ecosystem.
(I cancelled my spotify when the 2021 rewind showed how little I use it)
Joni and Neil can do whatever they want and I respect that. What bothers me are all of the virtue signalers following them and getting rid of Spotify (or claiming to).
You will not be able to consume anything if you actually care about these standards. Everyone is shitty and people are wrong all the time. Good luck finding a blameless company to buy all your stuff from. Not to mention all of the musicians who have no doubt done bad things and made poor choices.
If you don't like Joe Rogan, don't listen to him. I don't see why people feel the need to fucking ban Spotify.
Joni Mitchell Joining Neil Young in Protest over Spotify (apnews), 11pts, 8 comments[0], 8 hours ago
Joni Mitchell joins Neil Young's Spotify protest over anti-vax content (theguardian), 7pts, 5 comments[1], 8 hours ago
Joni Mitchell says she will follow Neil Young by removing her music from Spotify (cnn), 46pts, 72 comments[2], 10 hours ago
Joni Mitchell wants songs off Spotify in Covid row (bbc) 3pts, 0 comments[3], 18 hours ago
Joni Mitchell Says She’s Removing Her Music from Spotify(pitchfork) 1pt, 0 comments[4], 19 hours ago
Joni Mitchell pulling music from Spotify in solidarity with Neil Young (thedenverchannel?), 42pts, 84 comments[b], 21 hours ago
But even if he did, I suspect his ideology is such that scientific knowledge is de-valued over anti-establishment takes, and so nobody would listen to that healthcare expert. Because it’s not like his listeners haven’t heard that vaccines are effective - they just believe him as a source more than they believe any expert