Podcast host Joe Rogan has released a nine-minute response to Spotify addressing last week’s controversy, which saw music icons Neil Young and Joni Mitchell ditch the platform over misinformation complaints.
Rogan has faced repeated calls for his podcast’s cancellation after interviewing US cardiologist Peter McCullough and vaccine scientist Dr Robert Malone last month.
The 54-year-old discussed controversial topics surrounding the coronavirus pandemic, including information suppression, vaccine efficacy, suppression of early treatment medication and informed consent over the course of two three-hour interviews.
Spotify responded on Monday, revealing it would be introducing tags on certain content advising listeners to rely on their own doctor’s advice.
Rogan admitted he “absolutely gets things wrong”, promising viewers he would endeavour to find a “counter” guest shortly after controversial topics were discussed on his podcast.
He also welcomed Spotify’s move to place tags on controversial topics regarding Covid-19.
“The disclaimer says you should speak to your physician and the opinions the (guests) express are contrary to the opinions of experts. I’m very happy to have that,” he said.
Rogan insisted his only goal was to interview interesting people on topics of the hour, and claimed much of how he was being perceived came from people forming opinions before actually viewing the podcasts in full.
“I wanted to make this view because I think there is a lot of people who have a distorted perception of what I do, maybe based on soundbites or headlines of disparaging articles.
“The podcast has been accused of spreading ‘dangerous misinformation’, mainly about two episodes. Dr Peter McCullough is a cardiologist and is the most published physician in his field in history. Dr Robert Malone owns nine patents on the creation of mRNA technology.
“Both of these people are very highly credentialed, highly accomplished people who have opinions who differ from the mainstream narrative. I wanted to hear what their opinion is.”
A petition from 270 “experts” in the medical field to cancel Rogan’s US$100 million deal with Spotify surfaced shortly after, with iconic musicians like Young and Mitchell opting to publicly place an ultimatum to the streaming platform to either keep their discographies online, or Rogan.
Rogan addressed his problem with the term “misinformation”, citing the rapidly changing landscape of data and research when it comes to the coronavirus pandemic.
“The problem I have with the term misinformation, especially today, is that many of the things that we thought of as misinformation a short while ago, are now accepted fact.
“For instance, eight months ago, if you said if you get vaccinated you can still get Covid and spread Covid, you would be removed from certain social media platforms. Now that’s accepted as fact.
“If you said ‘I don’t think cloth masks work’, you would be banned from social media. Now, that is openly and repeatedly stated on CNN. If you said ‘I think it’s possible Covid-19 came from a lab’, you would have been banned from many platforms. Now that’s on the cover of NewsWeek.”
“All of those theories that were at one point in time banned, were openly discussed by those two men that were on my podcast, who have been accused of dangerous misinformation.”
“I’m interested in telling the truth and finding out what the truth is. I’m interested in talking to people with different opinions. I’m not interested in talking to people with one perspective.”
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