Note: This was originally published as the daily newsletter for the Columbia Journalism Review, where I am the chief digital writer
Last week, criticism of Spotify for hosting the Joe Rogan podcast—and thereby enabling the distribution of misinformation about COVID, among other things—accelerated after music legend Neil Young chose to remove all of his work from the streaming service. “I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines—potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them,” Young wrote in a letter on his website (which has since been removed). He was followed by a number of other artists, including fellow Canadian Joni Mitchell, Nils Lofgren, and the other former members of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. Prince Harry, the Duke of York, and his wife Meghan Markle, also registered their concerns about the service, which they have partnered with for a series of podcasts.
Throughout this process, Spotify’s position has remained steadfast: it said it is sorry for any harm caused by Rogan’s podcast, and it plans to add content warnings and other measures, but it also maintained that it is a platform and not a publisher—in other words, simply a conduit for content produced by artists such as Rogan, and not a publisher that makes choices about which specific kinds of content to include. Daniel Ek, co-founder and CEO of Spotify, wrote in a blog post that the company supports “creator expression,” and that there are plenty of artists and statements carried on the service that he disagrees with. “We know we have a critical role to play in supporting creator expression while balancing it with the safety of our users,” he said. “In that role, it is important to me that we don’t take on the position of being content censor.”
The only problem with Spotify’s platform defense—at least as it pertains to Joe Rogan—is that it isn’t true (even some Spotify employees called it “a dubious assertion” according to the LA Times). Rogan’s podcast isn’t available through any other service such as YouTube Music, Amazon Music, etc. He has an exclusive contract with Spotify, a relationship the company paid $100 million for. In that sense, Spotify is his publisher. As Elizabeth Spiers, former editor of the New York Observer, pointed out, this is a clear editorial choice the company has made, just as the New York Times or the Washington Post choose whom they give a column to. If those columnists decide to say something wrong or dangerous, responsibility for that lies with the paper.
Continue reading “Of platforms, publishers, and responsibility”