The Neil Young fight with Spotify has been an interesting one to say the least. While I agree spreading mis-information about COVID-19 is wrong and should be stopped, the rush to cancel Spotify is interesting to say the least.
Spotify has been under attack since Neil Young gave the streaming giant an ultimatum, 'Drop Joe Rogan or remove my music!' Now this is over the misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccinations that has been spread on The Joe Rogan Experience Podcast. I've been following this since it came to light and watched in anticipation of people who were so against Joe Rogan follow suit.
What happened surprised me, a few artists came out and said they would follow suit. Not the rush of people who were against the podcaster that twitter made it out to be. The twitter verse thou did react in a frenzy, with some calling Neil Young's move courageous and others calling on other artists to follow suit - which few did.
I'm a small broadcaster, have very small means to get my show out. But if I followed suit does that mean every other social media platform that has Joe Rogan on it should be 'canceled' as well. Joe Rogan posts clips on Twitter/Facebook/Youtube/Instagram and probably Tik Tok - not 100 per cent sure since I'm not on the platform. So should we be removing ourselves from those platforms?
This is a interesting new world we are entering.
Are we actually looking at jumping off platforms because they allow people to have different views or misinformation. If so maybe you should actually read Twitter!
By posting this I'm not saying that Joe Rogan is a trusted news outlet or even that Joe Rogan is good - I've actually never listened to one shows, and will probably never listen to one - but if you have an issue with Joe Rogan being on Spotify shouldn't one have an issue with him being on Twitter and all those other platforms as well?
I'm hedging my bets that the people who are upset with Spotify will return, maybe not today maybe not tomorrow, but sometime in the future they will be back.
To make a statement like 'I'm dropping my Spotify account' you can't make it a half measure statement, you have to go big or go home. To the those cancelling Spotify accounts or removing content from the streaming service, I ask, "If you hate what Spotify has done, why do you stand with platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram who share the exact same information?"