Prince Harry And Meghan Markle Send Warning To Spotify Over Joe Rogan's Podcast
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are joining the chorus of A-listers who are against The Joe Rogan Experience.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are joining the chorus of A-listers who are warning Spotify for continuing to host Joe Rogan's podcast.
Neil Young last week ordered the streaming service to remove his music because he was against Covid-19 and 'vaccine misinformation' being discussed on The Joe Rogan Experience.
The Harvest Moon singer gave Spotify an ultimatum: you take me off, or Rogan. Spotify went with the former.
However, it looks like Young has big-name supporters in his fight now.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex released a statement over the weekend that called on the streaming service to tread carefully with this situation.
"Since the inception of Archewell, we have worked to address the real-time global misinformation crisis," they said.
"Hundreds of millions of people are affected by the serious harms of mis- and disinformation every day.
"Last April, our co-founders began expressing concerns to our partners at Spotify about the all too real consequences of Covid misinformation on its platform.
"We have continued to express our concerns to Spotify to ensure changes to its platform are made to help address this public health crisis.
"We look to Spotify to meet this moment and are committed to continuing our work together as it does."
It comes after Joni Mitchell became the next high-profile musician to request her music be taken down.
In a message on her website, she said: "Irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives."
"I stand in solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical communities on this issue."
Bruce Springsteen guitarist Nils Lofgren has also asked for his tracks to be deleted and best-selling author Brene Brown said she won't release any more podcasts as long as Rogan is on Spotify.
Considering Spotify paid a rumoured $100 million for the rights to The Joe Rogan Experience, the company knows it's caught between a rock and a hard place.
But in a statement confirming it would be honouring Neil Young's wishes, the streaming service suggested it would back Rogan for a lot longer.
"We want all the world's music and audio content to be available to Spotify users," the company said.
"With that comes great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom for creators.
"We have detailed content policies in place and we've removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.
"We regret Neil's decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon."
According to NBC, Spotify's share price has fallen 26 per cent since the beginning of the year.
They fell to a 52-week low of US$164.41 on Friday (January 28) due to the controversy of Rogan's podcast.
Featured Image Credit: John Rainford/WENN.comTopics: joe rogan, Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, Spotify
Stewart Perrie