Spotify Is Defending Alex Jones' Appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience”

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/janelytvynenko/spotify-defends-alex-jones-joe-rogan-podcast

by abduhl • 6 years ago

33 35 6 years ago

Barrin923• 6 years ago

Decided to not renew my Spotify subscription. I know it doesn't matter but I think this is despicable. Facilitating someone who calls kids who were the victim of a mass shooting crisis actors and rants about the 'Jewish Mafia' and accuses Bill Gates of making people sick with vaccines during a pandemic, this isn't 'diversity of opinion'. It's just greed for clicks.

throwawayay02• 6 years ago

Aren't there mass murderers who give interviews and rapists who receive paychecks from true crime documentaries, and all manner of violent and crazy people being invited to radio talk shows, and still of course a great part of modern music being about raping, illegal drugs and murder.

Why would you expect Spotify to be this child-safe website?

gwilikers• 6 years ago

I think the framing is different. I hope folks aren't listening to true crime podcasts thinking "this murderer's making some good points".

Barrin923• 6 years ago

I haven't seen a true crime show yet that gives murderers a platform to advocate for murder, that's not the context those shows operate in, the same goes for art.

But the families of the Sandy Hook children faced harassment after Jones spewed his crap, and his talk against vaccines and masks on Rogan, who has 190 million downloads per month, is going to make misinformation worse, make public health worse, and cost lives. This is not a joke or some bad rap lyrics. These conspiracies threaten people's safety from the virus and from him riling up extremists. I'm not paying a company that enables this.

Jimmc4142• 6 years ago

Do you believe Alex Jones is still entitled to First Amendment rights?

TehCorwiz2• 6 years ago

Spotify isn’t the government. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean that anyone has to amplify that speech and broadcast it.

EDIT: Replying to child comments: The First Amendment only applies to the government; full stop. If a bakery can refuse service to a gay couple, and a restaurant can remove you for not following dress code, any private business can refuse you service. Period. You have freedom of speech and they have freedom of association. Those are both First Amendment rights. The right to refuse business is right there next to the right to spout off at the mouth.

MiddTech• 6 years ago

Yeah, full protection from repercussions by the american government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_...

Unless of course he's violating any (or lots of) the exceptions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...

As spotify is not the american government it doesn't really apply here.

In addition even if they were the american government, that would only apply in america, which is in fact, not the entire world.

op00to• 6 years ago

He can say whatever he wants without persecution from the government, but it doesn't mean we all have to give him the platform to be an asshole.

nailer3• 6 years ago

You would have liked the interview. Most of it was Rogan stopping Alex and getting Jamie to fact check things before Jones could move into the next topic.

nailer3• 6 years ago

"Bill Gates making people sick" came from CBS News. Here's the clip:

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CG54ZTvAdQC/?igshid=jh0r3qewcih...

hunta2097• 6 years ago

I don't even live in North America and even i've cancelled my long-standing Spotify family subscription over this. I came to Spotify for the music, not right-wing podcasts.

Spotify should have kept to music.

prudhvis• 6 years ago

I really appreciate Spotify for treating me as an adult and letting me make the decision. If it's a bad idea i want to hear it so i can be better prepared to counter it.

bsder• 6 years ago

The problem, as we are seeing, is that lots of people cannot distinguish between fact and fiction let alone propaganda.

There is a non-trivial cohort of people who think "It's on <Joe Rogan, Fox News, etc.>, so it can't be completely wrong."

Actually, yes it can. It can be on CNN and be completely wrong--the probabilities are lower because people get fired over that, but it still can be wrong.

And this is before we even get into the whole "There are equally valid sides to an argument" problem in the media. No, no there aren't always two valid sides, and sometimes there's a dozen valid sides.

I'm not sure how we should deal with this.

Lammy2• 6 years ago

I dealt with it by realizing that my own perception of the concepts of true and false can only be based on the consensus of other people I’m able to communicate with, and now that I can instantly reach billions of people I see it more like any side of any issue is “true” in the sense that “those ideas have been instantiated into our world and are something I have to deal with”. I don’t see any other solution, since how do you fight an idea? My country has been in wars against ideas for the entirety of my adult life and I’ve never seen them succeed.

thu2111• 6 years ago

The probabilities really aren't lower. CNN has fired a vanishingly low number of people over incorrect stories and in the rare cases that did occur, they were immediately hired by other outlets with identical viewpoints to CNN, where they continued writing exactly the same kinds of stories that got them fired previously (see Thomas Frank for an example).

Chris2048• 6 years ago

The problem is there are more "reputable" sources that are also often wrong, and are just as harmful, if not more, for the same reason: wikipedia, Politifact, The John Oliver show.

young_unixer• 6 years ago

In practice, censorship always comes with this bias:

Mainstream journalists and politicians can say all the lies they want, because they're usually not considered lies by whoever is in charge of the medium (Twitter, Spotify?, the government?).

Fringe movements don't have the popularity to pass off their lies as truth to the general population or the censor, they can only do it to their relatively small group of followers.

In the end, you end up with: popular lies are accepted, unpopular lies are censored. Sometimes unpopular truths get censored too.

Censorship is a problem itself, but a much bigger problem is biased censorship.

StringyBob• 6 years ago

I’ve been a Spotify premium member for over a decade. I love their service for listening to and discovering music. I don’t want to be contributing to over-inflated ‘exclusive’ podcaster salaries that I never listen to.

In previous feedback to Spotify I’ve asked for a ‘hide podcasts’ option in the iPhone app. It’s unwanted clutter I don’t use.

Time to redirect the money I pay to the artists I listen to. What systems would others recommend?

wpdev_63• 6 years ago

I also wanted to use a music service that supports the artists more and found that Napster[0](not the old P2P client) pays out the most royalties to artists. It works pretty well but obviously isn't as popular as spotify and doesn't have as many playlists but the music selection is similar. I use soundiiz[1] to bring my playlists over and it has been more or less seemless.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2019/oct/31/b...

[1]:soundiiz.com

Google2342• 6 years ago

I think this is a fair request. Maybe not a deal breaker for me though. It’s a little more expensive but you can just directly support the content you most enjoy. I’m not sure how convenient this is in the end though.

qqj• 6 years ago

You’re the same type of person who wants to dictate where and how his taxes are used (“I’d like a 70%-30% split on health and education. What’s that? Defense? Yeah I don’t like tanks, no thanks. Oh but do make sure it goes to building MRI machines - I do like those very much, the hum is soothing to me”).

While the sheer arrogance and borderline solipsism do bring a smile to ones face, they are completely impractical.

coffexx• 6 years ago

Whatever you want to say about the guy he's definitely not boring to listen to, and I enjoy listening to him and his antics whenever he's on with Joe. He's entertaining, and has a good sense of humor. If someone was to deprive me of the opportunity to listen to him, I'd be ticked off, and I don't agree with the guy (at least when I can understand what he's saying hahaha).

I can only imagine how people that do agree with his more unconventional views view those doing the deplatforming, but they're definitely not helping them by doing it. You're just insulating them from opposing views and making them angry at you. It feels to me like its vindictive, coming from a place of genuine hate. Thats not good no matter what the stated intentions are.

Jimmc4142• 6 years ago

The irony of the first amendment getting down votes in this thread is poetically tragic. It's almost as if writers like Aldous Huxley and George Orwell had the models down so well that prediction was easy.

amanaplanacanal• 6 years ago

I don’t see anybody downvoting the first amendment. What are you talking about?

diogenescynic• 6 years ago

Joe Rogan has a ton of right wing propaganda. Too much for it to be a coincidence. I’m also over the enlightened Everyman shtick, he peddles bullshit half the time. He was vehemently anti-mask. He’s dumb.

Spotify Is Defending Alex Jones' Appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience”

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