Graham Nash joined his bandmate, Neil Young, in boycotting Spotify for its failure to react to COVID misinformation being spread on its platform. Joe Rogan’s podcast, which is exclusively streamed on Spotify, has disseminated false COVID information to its audience. His latest controversy involved an interview with the controversial Dr. Robert Malone – a vaccine skeptic.
Spotify removed Young’s music after he issued it an ultimatum: “they can have Rogan or Young. Not both,” as he said. Since then, musicians like Joni Mitchell and Nils Lofgren have followed suit, removing their music from the platform. Most recently, Nash has stood in solidarity with Young in pulling his music from Spotify.
“Having heard the Covid disinformation spread by Joe Rogan on Spotify, I completley agree with and support my friend Neil Young and I am requesting that my solo recordings be removed from the service,” Nash said in statement Tuesday. “There is a difference between being open to varying viewpoints on a matter and knowingly spreading false information which some 270 medical professionals have derided as not only false but dangerous.”
In response, Spotify announced that it would implement disclaimers before episodes featuring COVID-19 discussions, while Rogan promised to “research topics” before discussing them in his podcast.
He added, “These podcasts are very strange because they’re just conversations. And oftentimes I have no idea what I’m going to talk about until I sit down and talk to people. And that’s why some of my ideas are not that prepared or fleshed out because I’m literally having them in real-time, but I do my best, and they’re just conversations.”
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