Spotify Begins Selective Purge of 100-Plus Joe Rogan Podcast Episodes
Despite a number of assurances in recent weeks that streaming platform Spotify was going to stand by Joe Rogan, the platform has begun to selectively remove over 100 episodes of the host’s ultra-popular podcast.
Rogan, who was once hailed as a great arbiter of free speech on account of his willingness to speak with just about anyone, recently found himself in the hot seat over his discussions regarding COVID-19. This caused a number of high profile musical acts to pull their music from Spotify, with the list continuing to grow by the day.
Spotify has publicly defended their relationship with Rogan, but are now quietly removing a great many episodes of his, beginning with those featuring a conservative slant.
JREMissing reported Saturday that 113 episodes of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” many of them older and recorded before his recent COVID-19 controversy, had been yanked.
Among the missing shows are those featuring well-known conservatives, far-right pundits or conspiracy theorists, including Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, Michael Malice, Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos, as well as comedians like Rich Vos and Little Esther and Bulletproof founder Dave Asprey.
Rogan was also battling a renewed controversy about his repeated use of a derogatory term.
Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, singer/songwriter India Arie, Mary Trump and writer Brene Brown are among those who have pulled their work off the platform.
Advertisement - story continues belowRogan was forced to apologize a second time Friday, after Arie showed a now-viral clip of Rogan uttering the n-word numerous times in his podcast over the years. Rogan called the instances of him saying the n-word “regretful and shameful.”
For now, Rogan is still a part of the Spotify family, but there’s no telling for how long.
