If you understand business versus Twitter mobs, the stance that Spotify is taking is the 100% correct call to make. Joe Rogan has nearly 200 MILLION monthly listeners. Twitter, based on this, only has 77.75M in North America.
Which means Rogan has a bigger audience than even if everyone lit their virtue signal at the exact same time and begged for his removal.
The CEO of Spofity knows this — it is why they gave him $100M, won’t shut him down, and will figure out a way to capitulate the mob in some token form, but nothing substantial.
He said as much.
“I come back to centering on our mission of unlocking the potential of human creativity and enabling more than a billion people to enjoy the work of what we think will be more than 50 million creators. That mission makes these clashes worth the effort,” Elk said in a statement to Spotify employees.
“I think it’s important you’re aware that we’ve had conversations with Joe and his team about some of the content in his show, including his history of using some racially insensitive language. Following these discussions and his own reflections, he chose to remove a number of episodes from Spotify. He also issued his own apology over the weekend.”
Though Ek does not always agree with the podcaster and he stands behind Rogan’s decision to remove controversial episodes from the past, Ek says he supports people whose opinion may differ than his own.
“I want to make one point very clear – I do not believe that silencing Joe is the answer. We should have clear lines around content and take action when they are crossed, but canceling voices is a slippery slope,” said Ek. “Looking at the issue more broadly, it’s critical thinking and open debate that powers real and necessary progress.”
The Spotify CEO reiterated his stance one final time, supporting different opinions over cancel culture.
“While some might want us to pursue a different path, I believe that more speech on more issues can be highly effective in improving the status quo and enhancing the conversation altogether,” added Ek.
If that was not enough to get the Libs in a wad… Rogan (no shock) has an option to head to Rumble (also, no shock) as its CEO posted an open offer to the comedian.
Now, I doubt that Spotify does anything meaningful to Rogan.
I also doubt that he would brand himself as one on “the Right” by going to Rumble.
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out, though I expect it will trickle down to a wimper from a select group of whiny Libs who are ready to screech when they are told to screech… which means they will be screeching at someone else soon enough.
