Crosby, Stills and Nash become latest act to pull music from Spotify over Joe Rogan misinformation
Disbanded folk supergroup showed solidarity with former member over Covid and vaccine row
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Your support makes all the difference.Crosby, Stills and Nash have become the latest act to demand that their music is removed from Spotify in protest at Joe Rogan’s alleged Covid-19 and vaccination misinformation.
The disbanded supergroup, who were known as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young when Neil Young was a member, showed solidarity for him in his row with the streaming giant.
The high-profile departures were led by Young and Joni Mitchell, who have were then joined by Bruce Springsteen’s guitarist Nils Lofgren, Graham Nash and Indie.Arie.
Young started the trend by saying he would no longer be affiliated with Spotify, which has an exclusive podcast deal with Rogan.
“We support Neil and we agree with him that there is dangerous disinformation being aired on Spotify’s Joe Rogan podcast,” the group, made up of David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Nash, wrote in a joint statement that was posted on David Crosby’s social media.
“While we always value alternate points of view, knowingly spreading disinformation during this global pandemic has deadly consequences.
“Until real action is taken to show that a concern for humanity must be balanced with commerce, we don’t want our music — or the music we made together — to be on the same platform.”
The Swedish streaming giant has refused to remove or censure Rogan, who is the platform’s biggest podcaster.
Instead, CEO Daniel Ek announced on Sunday that the company would add Covid-19 content advisory labels in response to the backlash.
“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,” said Spotify CEO Daniel Ek on Sunday, without mentioning Rogan by name.
Last month 270 scientists and doctors wrote an open letter urging Spotify to take action “against the mass-misinformation events which continue to occur on its platform.”
Rogan took to Instagram on Sunday to apologise to Spotify.
“I want to thank Spotify for being so supportive during this time and I’m very sorry that this is happening to them and that they’re taking so much heat from it,” he said.
And he added: “I’m not trying to promote misinformation, I’m not trying to be controversial.
“I’ve never tried to do anything with this podcast other than to just talk to people.”
“I do all the scheduling myself, and I don’t always get it right,” he added.
But since his apology, there have been no new episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience, which Spotify paid a reported $100m to obtain the exclusive rights to.
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