Paying a reported $100 million to lock down JRE as an exclusive brings more responsibility for its content than a show from "any other creator.” Ek argued during that same speech to employees that “exclusivity does not equal endorsement” and that the solution is to secure “an even broader set of exclusives that represent even more voices.” These two statements point to Spotify trying to build a foundation when the house is nearly finished.Ī treasure trove of exclusives has helped make Spotify the number one podcast app in the US, according to Ek. Spotify is a publisher, no matter what it says to the contrary. Washington Post columnist Margaret Sullivan wrote this weekend that Spotify’s “failure to take any meaningful responsibility, other than adding a few disclaimers, is all too reminiscent of the way Facebook, for years, has dodged accountability for spreading so many harmful lies.” And part of shirking responsibility comes in the form of Spotify’s argument of a platform versus a publisher. “We don’t approve his guests in advance, and just like any other creator, we get his content when he publishes, and then we review it, and if it violates our policies, we take the appropriate enforcement actions,” Ek said. He said that since JRE is licensed content, it doesn’t have oversight like it does for podcasts from The Ringer or Gimlet – production companies Spotify owns. To employees during a company meeting the same day, the CEO explained that Spotify is not a publisher, so it doesn’t have creative control over Rogan’s show in advance. "We should've done it earlier and that's on me," he admitted. It’s unclear if Ek was already planning to publish the platform-wide policy or if it was in response to a report two days earlier of internal explanations to employees as to why certain episodes of Rogan’s podcast hadn’t been removed.ĭuring the company’s Q4 2021 earnings call last week, Ek took responsibility for not publishing the content policy sooner. Two weeks later, CEO Daniel Ek penned a statement on the matter and posted the company’s “platform rules” on a Sunday afternoon. When the group posted the letter online, Engadget reached out to Spotify to ask if the company already had a misinformation policy, how it takes action against misinformation and if it was considering any action against the Malone episode of JRE. After the episode was posted, hundreds of doctors, nurses, scientists and educators sent a letter to Spotify urging it to create a clear misinformation policy and take "responsibility to mitigate the spread” of such content. Malone made a number of unfounded claims about COVID-19 vaccines, including that “mass formation psychosis” led many in the US to take the jab. The popular podcast host has been controversial for years, but criticism ramped up after a December 31 episode featuring physician and biochemist Dr. And the lack of transparency is why the company’s current issues are much bigger than one massively popular creator.īy now, you’ve likely heard something about the Joe Rogan saga. Much of the backlash is warranted as Spotify hasn’t been up front about the content of Rogan’s podcast, or misinformation in general. Furore over Joe Rogan’s podcast and Spotify’s subsequent misinformation policies and actions has come both internally and externally. From musicians pulling their music to a high-profile podcaster pausing their exclusive show, Spotify is under attack from all sides.
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