After radically reshaping how we listen to and purchase music, in 2019 Spotify set its sights on new conquests. The audio gold rush was well underway, and Spotify mined its riches with a push into podcasting, acquiring Gimlet Media, Parcast, and The Ringer. They also embarked on a series of mega deals for high-wattage talent, signing the Obamas, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, and, of course, podcasting phenomenon Joe Rogan, who entered into an exclusive licensing agreement for a reported $100 million. The strategy was a means to attract new customers while showing Wall Street a path forward that didn’t involve siphoning roughly 70% of Spotify’s revenues back to the music industry. Content, of course, has a tendency to court controversy, and Rogan is now giving Spotify more controversy than it bargained for.

With his outsize media footprint, no-fucks-given hosting style, and an estimated 11 million listeners per episode, Rogan is, like it or not, the face of Spotify’s podcasting play. It’s a face that comes with voluble “anti-woke” bona fides; a hyper-macho sensibility somewhere between MAGA and Bernie Bro; and, most problematically, a warm embrace of vaccine skepticism. But all of that is part of the appeal for Rogan’s loyal army of superfans, many of them young and male, which is what makes him so valuable to a company whose success depends on attracting large numbers of engaged paying subscribers. In the words of one seasoned audio industry insider, having Joe Rogan “is like dropping a Taylor Swift album every day. Spotify needs him way more than he needs Spotify.” (Spotify didn’t have a comment for this story.) 

The Joe Rogan Experience, which debuted in the earlier and comparatively quaint podcasting era of 2009, towers over its Spotify peers. Part of that has to do with the reality that the company’s other big-ticket deals just simply haven’t gained the same traction. Harry and Meghan have produced a lone 33-minute holiday special since inking a reported $25 million Spotify contract in December 2020. (They currently don’t have anything else in development with Spotify, someone familiar with the matter confirmed.) The Obamas, whose 2019 deal was rumored to be in the same general ballpark, have produced a few compelling shows, including one podcast hosted by Michelle Obama and another in which Barack Obama teamed up with Bruce Springsteen. But the buzz around these efforts has paled in comparison to the couples’ best-selling memoirs, or even the award-winning features they’ve produced for a separate content deal they have with Netflix. Moreover, informed sources told me the Obamas’ production company, Higher Ground, has been frustrated with Spotify at times, finding it difficult to get additional shows off the ground. I’m told the Obamas are more interested in lifting young new voices than carrying shows themselves, and that this focus hasn’t always aligned with Spotify’s. (Another source said that Spotify and Higher Ground are in active production on new shows in this vein.) As for the other offerings under the Spotify banner, chances are you haven’t heard of them. But you almost certainly hear about Joe Rogan every time something crazy is said on his show.

The latest such brouhaha began stirring a few weeks ago, in the wake of a podcast episode featuring the vaccine scientist turned prominent vaccine skeptic Robert Malone. What originated as an earnest open letter to Spotify brass soon snowballed into a full-blown public relations crisis for the Swedish streaming titan. “Joe Rogan has repeatedly spread misleading and false claims on his podcast, provoking distrust in science and medicine,” 270 scientists, doctors, and other public health figures wrote to the company. “This is not only a scientific or medical concern; it is a sociological issue of devastating proportions and Spotify is responsible for allowing this activity to thrive on its platform. We, the undersigned doctors, nurses, scientists, and educators thus call on Spotify to immediately establish a clear and public policy to moderate misinformation on its platform.”

Like a tropical depression strengthening into a hurricane, the situation became a Category 5 shitstorm last week when Neil Young and Joni Mitchell made the decision to pull their music, though Mitchell’s music had yet to be removed at press time. (In a related side plot, climate scientists raged about Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson proclaiming on the show last week, “There’s no such thing as climate, right?”) Then came the backlash from consumers, some unknown number of whom have said they canceled their subscriptions and moved to rivals like Apple Music and Tidal. #DeleteSpotify became a hashtag. Spotify’s customer support line was overwhelmed. The company saw a couple billion dollars in market value go kaput. CEO Daniel Ek’s carefully crafted statement on Sunday—that Spotify was “working to add a content advisory to any podcast episode that includes a discussion about COVID-19,” and that “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”—was met with a collective eye roll from the Twitter cognoscenti. As Kara Swisher suggested: “Interesting that a thing once called editing for facts became being a content censor. Well, not interesting—just wordwashing by tech folks who want all the power and money and none of the responsibilities when things get dicey, as things always get.”

To be fair, one of the coauthors of the letter that set the whole scandal in motion, epidemiologist Jessica Malaty Rivera, had the following to say (on her Instagram Stories) about Spotify’s new content advisory: “THIS IS WHAT WE ASKED FOR. Not censoring. Not deplatforming. Not canceling. Not silencing.” Rogan, for his part, said in a 10-minute video message on Instagram that he would “try harder to get people with differing opinions on right [after]” conversations with vaccine skeptics, as well as to “do my best to try to balance out these more controversial viewpoints with other people’s perspectives.”

The imbroglio is one of the latest fronts in the culture wars, as content-dependent technology platforms navigate ever-more perilous minefields pitting the public good against censorship and free speech. It’s also a sign that no platform is immune to the agita. Blowups that were once the domain of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are now spreading like wildfire across the land. Netflix got a taste last fall when it came under fire over a Dave Chappelle special containing offensive material about transgender people. (Netflix stood its ground.) Substack, which has likewise faced criticism over trans issues, now finds itself in the hot seat with regard to vaccine misinformation, following a report last week that several vaccine skeptics collectively make at least $2.5 million a year hosting their newsletters on the platform. (Substack didn’t budge either: “As we face growing pressure to censor content published on Substack that to some seems dubious or objectionable, our answer remains the same: We make decisions based on principles not P.R.”)

In Spotify’s case, the question now is whether additional artists and content creators join the boycott. A handful already have, but no one with Young and Mitchell’s clout, and certainly none with more clout. (Looking in Taylor Swift’s direction.) One wonders where the Obamas’ heads are on this (they didn’t weigh in on Netflix’s Chappelle controversy), although we know what Harry and Megan think. “Last April, our cofounders began expressing concerns to our partners at Spotify about the all-too-real consequences of COVID-19 misinformation on its platform,” a spokesperson for their company, Archewell, said over the weekend. “We have continued to express our concerns to Spotify to ensure changes to its platform are made to help address this public health crisis.” Ditto Wendy Zukerman, host of Gimlet Media’s Science Vs podcast, who cowrote a letter to Ek saying, “Until Spotify implements stronger methods to prevent the spread of misinformation on the platform, we will no longer be making new Science Vs episodes, except those intended to counteract misinformation being spread on Spotify.” Ek, however, can probably breath a little easier for the time being. Spotify’s stock has rebounded, and it would take a lot more backlash than we’ve already seen to pry away the vast majority of its tens of millions of users. A caveat, per Kevin Roose of The New York Times: ”Spotify may think it’s gotten past the worst of the Rogan backlash. But we know from recent history that what looks like the end of a content moderation controversy is often just the warm-up act.” 

Much of that will depend on how Rogan handles COVID conversations going forward. To his credit, he has in the past welcomed public health warriors like Sanjay Gupta and Peter Hotez. I asked Hotez—a prominent vaccine scientist who practically has a second full-time job going on cable news to combat anti-science rhetoric—what he thought of Spotify’s response. “Spotify’s trying to thread the needle here,” he said. “They want to have their cake and eat it too. Obviously they want to keep him on board, but they also want to keep the Neil Youngs and Joni Mitchells on board, and to stop the hemorrhage.”

Hotez said he hasn’t done Rogan’s podcast since earlier in the pandemic, shortly before Rogan joined Spotify. He said he’s reached out several times offering to go on but hasn’t gotten a response. Hotez also said he and Rogan had a cordial relationship—he took his son to one of Rogan’s comedy shows in Houston and had a fine time backstage. What would he like to see happen? ”We still have 2,000 unvaccinated Americans losing their lives needlessly every day, and a percentage of them are going off of the disinformation from some of Joe’s guests, and that’s what has to stop,” Hotez said. ”The best outcome is not deplatforming Joe, but getting him to bring on some serious guests that can explain the benefits of getting vaccinated and how it will save your life.”

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