Following days of controversy stemming from Spotify’s dealing with of allegations that Joe Rogan has used the platform to unfold COVID-19 misinformation, the corporate stated on Sunday it might take new measures to level its customers to correct details about the pandemic. In a weblog publish attributed to CEO Daniel Ek, the corporate admitted it hasn’t been clear sufficient about its content material coverage, however stopped wanting detailing any particular motion towards Rogan.
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Sometime within the subsequent few days, Spotify says it is going to add a content material advisory to any podcast episode that features a dialogue about COVID-19. That advisory will direct listeners to the corporate’s COVID-19 Hub. In its present iteration, the web page contains hyperlinks to podcasts from the BBC, ABC News and Foreign Policy. “To our knowledge, this content advisory is the first of its kind by a major podcast platform,” in accordance with Ek. However, social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have employed related measures.
Spotify has additionally pledged to publicly share its content material tips. As of as we speak, you possibly can learn them via the corporate’s Newsroom web site. In the long run, they’ll even be accessible via Spotify’s most important web site, and the corporate has promised to translate them into quite a lot of different languages. Lastly, the corporate says it plans to begin testing methods to spotlight its content material tips within the instruments it gives to podcast producers and different creators.
“We know we have a critical role to play in supporting creator expression while balancing it with the safety of our users,” Ek stated. “In that role, 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.”
The motion comes after musicians Neil Young and Joni Mitchell pulled their music from the streaming platform in protest of its dealing with of Rogan’s podcast and misinformation extra broadly. Earlier as we speak, writer Brené Brown stated she wouldn’t launch any new episodes of her Spotify-exclusive podcast “until further notice.”
After Young first pulled his catalog from the platform, the corporate defended its document towards misinformation by claiming it had eliminated 20,000 COVID-related episodes because the begin of the pandemic. However, as a part of that sweep, Spotify seems to haven’t eliminated any episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience. For occasion, you possibly can nonetheless hearken to the controversial episode the place Dr. Robert Malone falsely claims “mass formation psychosis” has led folks to imagine vaccines are efficient towards COVID-19. The Verge subsequently printed the corporate’s COVID-19 content material tips. In an inside memo, Spotify stated Rogan’s content material didn’t “meet the edge for removing.”