ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY MY ONLY POST ABOUT THE GREAT SPOTIFY EXODUS

[defrog]

You know by now that Neil Young has started an exodus of sorts from Spotify over Joe Rogan’s podcasts. It’s not a long list of artists right now, but it seems to be getting longer, so it will be interesting to see how far this escalates. And as someone who uses Spotify mainly because of a lack of viable alternatives in HK (before you ask, no we don’t get Pandora or SiriusXM here), I have a few thoughts about it.

 

1. To get the obvious stuff out of the way, I don’t listen to Joe Rogan – in fact I didn’t really know anything about him until this whole thing erupted. I mention this because most of the online “debate” seems to depend exclusively on one’s pre-established opinion of Rogan, Neil Young or Spotify, so I’m coming from a more nuanced position here.

 

2. Not unexpectedly, Spotify has defaulted to the free-speech defense, saying that as a content platform it doesn’t want to be in the position of censoring people. Which is admirable, except that we have already gone through this whole argument with Facebook and Twitter’s moderation policies: Facebook vs Alex Jones, Twitter vs Donald Trump, YouTube vs PewDiePie, etc.

 

Like any other platform, Spotify does have user T&Cs that give it the right to boot anyone who violates them, and considering the regulatory heat that Facebook, Twitter and Google has been enduring over their unwillingness to police extremist content that generates likes, retweets and other things that keep the advertisers happy – and the demonstrable real-world consequences of this – you’d think Daniel Ek would read the room a little better.

 

3. On the other hand, as others have pointed out, a key difference between Facebook, Twitter and Spotify is that only of these companies signed a $100 million multi-year contract with Rogan for exclusive rights to host his podcasts, and has spent close to $1 billion on acquisitions to beef up its podcast library. Spotify’s profit margin for music isn't that great because most of what it earns has to be paid back out in royalties (and remember, Spotify’s royalty calculations are infamously non-generous to begin with). So it needs other ways to make money – it’s banking on podcasts for that, and Rogan is one of the most popular podcasts on its platform. All of which makes it a lot more difficult for Spotify to simply boot Rogan the same way that Trump, Jones and PewDiePie eventually got shown the door.

 

4. Spotify’s decision to make its content moderation guidelines public and put COVID information links on Rogan’s podcast (which Rogan has said he’s fine with) may or may not be a an effective solution, though at the very least it’s a good start. Personally I’m not convinced that kicking Rogan off Spotify would solve anything. On the other hand, I do think Spotify needs to take its own moderation policies more seriously and hold its talent accountable – especially at a time when people are actively weaponizing social media platforms to spread disinformation, and when COVID disinformation in particular is contributing to the spread of a deadly pandemic.

 

5. Whether that means Neil, Joni et al will put their music back on Spotify is really up to Neil, Joni et al. Honestly, as far as I’m concerned, Neil and Joni can put their music anywhere they want, and they can pick and choose which platforms to use for any reason they like. It’s their music, and if they don’t want to be on the same platform as Rogan, who am I to be critical?

 

Deplatformed,

 

This is dF