Spotify CEO Daniel Ek condemned this Monday (7) racist speeches by podcaster Joe Rogan, but said he will not remove the presenter’s program from the platform. The two parties have an exclusivity deal estimated at more than $100 million.
Last Saturday (5), Rogan published an apology on his Instagram profile for the disclosure of a compilation of old videos in which he appears using the word “nigga”, an offensive way in which whites addressed blacks in the time of slavery. The term is now used colloquially in hip-hop in the United States, but it still sounds pejorative when uttered by a white person.
The comments made by Ek are in an internal letter that circulated in the company, to which the Reuters agency had access. In the text, the businessman claims that it was Rogan’s own decision to remove episodes from his podcast from the platform last weekend. On Saturday, amid controversy over the release of the video, the American newspaper The New York Times reported that about 70 episodes of the show “The Joe Rogan Experience” had been deleted by Spotify – the streaming service did not comment.
“While I strongly condemn what Joe said, I want to make one point very clear: I don’t believe silencing him is the best response,” he said in the letter.
The CEO also reiterated and defended the service’s content moderation policies, stating that they must be respected when disobeyed, but pondering the fact that silencing voices is shaky ground.
The letter also reports that the company will invest US$ 100 million (R$ 530 million) in actions to leverage content from historically marginalized groups.
In last Saturday’s video of more than five minutes, Rogan apologized “sincerely and humbly”, and said that the compilation of racist lines was the “most regrettable and shameful thing” he has had to publicly address. “Never used [termos racistas] to be racist, because I’m not racist,” he declared. “But every time you’re in a situation where you have to say you’re not racist, you’ve made a huge mistake.”
With an estimated 11 million listeners per episode on Spotify alone, “The Joe Rogan Experience” is still at the center of another controversy with Spotify after an episode was denounced by a group of scientists and health professionals, who claimed it the program presented false data about vaccines and Covid-19.
In a three-hour interview with immunologist Robert Malone, the attraction draws parallels between Nazi Germany and today’s US. The guest also says that society is being “hypnotized” in relation to combating the pandemic. Audio streaming chose to keep the episode on the platform — a move contrary to that of YouTube, which took down the content on the show’s official channel and attempts by other users to upload the video.
Musician Neil Young then demanded that the platform take action against the podcast, under threat that he would take his songs off the service if Rogan’s show was not banned.
He had labeled Spotify as “home of Covid misinformation that puts lives at risk.” In a statement, the platform defended Rogan, while reiterating its content moderation policy. “We regret Neil’s decision to remove his music from Spotify,” the company said in a statement. “But we hope to welcome you back soon.”
Joni Mitchell and other musicians later joined Neil Young in asking Spotify to take their music down. “Irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives,” wrote Mitchell on his official website. She added that she was “in solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical communities on this issue.”
After announcing that all podcasts that mention Covid will have links to factual, scientifically proven information about the pandemic — something similar to what happens on social networks like Instagram — the platform said that more than 20,000 episodes related to Covid have already been removed. coronavirus because of misinformation.
The app lost more than $2 billion in market value after the controversy.
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