Doctors, medical professionals and scientists fight COVID-19 misinformation on a daily basis. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter Policies have been put in place in an effort to curb widespread false claims, but some policies have no provisions. A team of 270 doctors, nurses, scientists and educators sent an open letter to Spotify after a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, calls on the streaming service to adopt a clear policy and exercise “responsibility to reduce the spread of misinformation”.
On the December 31 episode of his podcast, Joe Rogan interviewed Dr. Robert Malone, a virologist, who said he was one of the creators of mRNA technology. Its unclear even if it’s true. During the conversation, Malone made baseless claims about COVID-19, including the suggestion that “massive psychosis” led people to believe that vaccines work. results and the view that President Biden withheld data supporting ivermectin as a valid treatment. The episode quickly went viral among both critics and fans as Rogan averaged over 10 million listeners per episode. YouTube deleted a video of the interview and Malone recently banned on twitter due to a violation of the platform’s COVID-19 misinformation policy.
“By allowing the spread of false and harmful assertions to society, Spotify is enabling its archived media to damage public trust in scientific research and raise suspicion. about the reliability of guidance based on data provided by health professionals”. explanatory letter. “[The episode] This isn’t the only breach to occur on the Spotify platform, but a relevant example of the platform’s failure to mitigate the damage it caused. “
In April, The Verge reported that Spotify is okay with an episode of Rogan on which he encourages 21-year-olds not to get vaccinated. A company source pointed out that the message was not “ostensibly anti-vaccination” and that he did not “issue a call to action.” The Verge’s Ashley Carman wrote at the time. Spotify has removed more obvious examples of vaccine misinformation, including a song by musician Ian Brown and a podcast from Pete Evans. In the past, the company has said that it “strictly prohibits content on the platform that promotes dangerously misleading, deceptive, or misleading content about COVID-19 that could be harmful offline and/or pose a direct threat to the public.” public health.” And that when something violates those guidelines, it gets deleted.
However, as this open letter points out, Spotify does not have the same official misinformation policy as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others. The team is asking the foundation to just do that, instead of directly taking action against Rogan or removing the episode in question. They want the company to create rules that hold podcast creators accountable for the content of their shows.
Spotify paid a reported $100 million to shut down Joe Rogan’s Experience as an exclusive podcast in 2020. The most popular program on the platform in 2021, both in the United States and globally. As Rogan faced criticism for his guest choice, included another example of pandemic misinformation in an episode starring Alex Jones, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, said the platform no editorial responsibility via podcasts.
“We also have a lot of well-paid rappers on Spotify who make tens of millions of dollars, if not more, every year from Spotify.” Ek said to Axios. “And we don’t specify what they put in their songs either.”
Spotify did not respond to Engadget’s request for comment on both the open letter and the company’s misinformation policies.
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