While it is more difficult to scan audio content for misinformation than the written content of many social media platforms, Spotify’s response is too little, too late.

Ek also announced that Spotify is “working to add a content advisory” notice to podcasts that discuss Covid-19, which would direct listeners to Spotify’s “Covid-19 Hub” – primarily a landing page for podcasts about the pandemic and vaccines.

He said that the company would start promoting these rules to creators “to raise awareness around what’s acceptable and help creators understand their accountability” for what they publish. In a statement on Spotify’s website, the company’s CEO, Daniel Ek, said, in response to the backlash, that Spotify would now share its “long-standing Platform Rules”. Spotify has since faced further scrutiny for the many misinformation-laden podcasts it hosts. Other artists, including Joni Mitchell, did the same.

Young called Spotify “the home of life-threatening Covid misinformation” and removed his content from the platform. Spotify reportedly offered the comedian a $100m exclusivity deal in 2020.īut, of course, that was before the rock legend Neil Young said that Spotify had to choose between hosting his music or hosting Rogan, after the latter allowed (not for the first time) Covid-19 vaccine sceptics to appear on his podcast. Rogan showed not just how Spotify could make money through podcasting, but how podcasters could find their greatest audience on the platform. Does Spotify have a Joe Rogan problem? Or is Joe Rogan the solution to Spotify’s problem? Until recently, many would have thought the latter: the American presenter of the The Joe Rogan Experience was one of Spotify’s most successful podcasters in the US and the UK, drawing in 11 million listeners per episode.

Spotify joe rogan podcast