You can now find them on our newsroom, and they’ll live permanently on the main Spotify website. These are rules of the road to guide all of our creators-from those we work with exclusively to those whose work is shared across multiple platforms. These policies were developed by our internal team in concert with a number of outside experts and are updated regularly to reflect the changing safety landscape. “Today we are publishing our long-standing Platform Rules. We’ve heard you – especially those from the medical and scientific communities – and are taking the following steps: “Based on the feedback over the last several weeks, it’s become clear to me that we have an obligation to do more to provide balance and access to widely-accepted information from the medical and scientific communities guiding us through this unprecedented time. This, in turn, led to questions around their application to serious issues including COVID-19. We have had rules in place for many years but admittedly, we haven’t been transparent around the policies that guide our content more broadly. “You’ve had a lot of questions over the last few days about our platform policies and the lines we have drawn between what is acceptable and what is not. In that role, it is important to me that we don’t take on the position of being content censor while also making sure that there are rules in place and consequences for those who violate them. We know we have a critical role to play in supporting creator expression while balancing it with the safety of our users. Personally, there are plenty of individuals and views on Spotify that I disagree with strongly. Pick almost any issue and you will find people and opinions on either side of it.

To our very core, we believe that listening is everything. “A decade ago, we created Spotify to enable the work of creators around the world to be heard and enjoyed by listeners around the world. There has been a mounting wave of speculation that Young and Mitchell’s exit from Spotify may potentially spawn a larger exodus from the platform by musicians and content creators. “I first learned of this problem by reading that 200-plus doctors had joined forces, taking on the dangerous life-threatening COVID falsehoods found in Spotify programming.”

“Spotify has recently become a very damaging force via its public misinformation and lies about COVID,” Young wrote.

Joni Mitchell followed Young’s lead on Friday by demanding her music be removed from the platform, saying “I stand in solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical communities on this issue.” Spotify responded by removing Young’s music from the platform later. Not both,” Young wrote in an open letter posted on his website). Last Wednesday, Young released a statement demanding his music be removed from the streaming service, leveling accusations against Spotify (“They can have Rogan or Young. Rogan signed a $100 million deal in May 2020, giving Spotify exclusive distribution rights (though not ownership of) his podcast. We’ve heard you – especially those from the medical and scientific communities,” Ek wrote in the statement posted on Spotify’s website.Įarlier in the year, a number of public health officials urged Spotify to take action against Rogan, accusing the massively popular “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast of possessing a “concerning history of broadcasting misinformation, particularly regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.” Rogan’s program is currently the most-listened to podcast on the audio streaming service.

Spotify joe rogan covid misinformation