Singer Neil Young has demanded that his music be removed from Spotify over concerns that the platform’s most popular podcaster, Joe Rogan, is spreading vaccine misinformation, Rolling Stone magazine reported.
“I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform. They can have Rogan or Young. Not both,” he wrote in a letter to his record company and management team, according to the magazine.
“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,” he added.
Earlier this month 270 scientists and medical professionals issued an open letter to Spotify, urging the streaming giant to establish a misinformation policy after an episode of the Joe Rogan Experience promoted what they said were “baseless conspiracy theories” about the pandemic.
The Dec. 31 program featured Robert Malone, a doctor who has called himself the “inventor” of mRNA vaccines, the type that serves as the basis for the COVID-19 vaccine. Malone was banned from Twitter for circulating anti-vaccine misinformation. YouTube deleted a recording of the Rogan podcast shortly after it was uploaded to the website by a third party.
Since the start of the pandemic, Spotify has removed 20,000 podcast episodes containing COVID misinformation. The company has deleted more than 40 episodes of Rogan’s podcast—which has an estimated 11 million listeners—to date.
