Spotify reportedly has a very limited set of COVID content guidelines

When Spotify Starts remove Neil Young’s playlist from its service, it defends its practices against misinformation and says it has obtained more than 20,000 episodes of COVID-related podcasts. Young threatened to remove his catalog from the service over allegations that Joe Rogan was spreading disinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine through his podcast. Despite what Spotify has said, Joe Rogan’s Experience still available on Spotify’s COVID content policy and platform (as seen The Verge) may explain why this is the case.

Apparently, even Spotify employees are upset with the company’s partnership with Rogan due to his stance on COVID-19. The company’s head of global communications Dustee Jenkins addressed those concerns on Spotify’s Slack and told employees that a team had reviewed many of the controversial controversies. Joe Rogan Experience and found that they “didn’t reach the threshold for deletion”. She called members of the team that did the internal review “some of the best experts in the field” and also said that Spotify is working with third parties to help them develop their policies. . “What Spotify hasn’t done is move fast enough to share these policies externally, and is working to get that resolved as soon as possible,” she added.

While Spotify has yet to share those policies, The Verge posted a copy of the health care guidelines, which prohibit:

“Content that promotes dangerous health care fraud or scams that can cause offline harm and/or direct public health threats, such as:

Denying the existence of AIDS or COVID-19

Intentional promotion of serious or life-threatening illness or disease

It is suggested that consumption of bleach can cure many diseases

Assume that wearing a mask will cause the wearer to suffer imminent physical harm, dangerous to life

Advertise or suggest that vaccines are designed to cause death”

There are plenty of podcasters that can skip with such a narrow and limited set of rules. Meanwhile, YouTube make it clear that any content with claims contrary to local health authorities or WHO is prohibited on their website. Those are not just suggestions that wearing a mask would cause prohibited harm on the Google-owned service, but also claims that wearing a mask does not help prevent the contraction or transmission of COVID-19. A podcast server on Spotify can say the latter without being affected. Spotify also has no rule prohibiting claims that ivermectin is a safe and effective treatment for viruses.

Back in December, a group of scientists and doctors sent a open letter to Spotify, asked it to implement a misinformation policy after Rogan invited Dr. Robert Malone to watch his show. In the controversial episode, Malone claims people only believe that the COVID-19 vaccine is effective due to “mass-forming psychosis.” The group also listed some of the “false and untrue claims” Rogan made on his podcast during the pandemic, including when he said the mRNA vaccine was “gene therapy” and some different when he advertised the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19.