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Spotify reportedly fighting with employees about hosting episodes of Joe Rogan

businessinsider.com

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Re: Spotify reportedly fighting with employees about hosting episodes of Joe Rogan

#131

Post by justapassenger »

mef79 wrote: post #63
CivBase wrote: post #23

Hosting content should not be treated the same supporting it. Plain and simple. A host should have the right to curate the (legal) content they host according to whatever rules they want, but simply hosting it alone should not be treated as tacit endorcement. Otherwise, discenting voices will be left without a platform.

Spotify should be permitted to host what it wants to. But they should also listen to their employees who do the work that makes the platform run. This article isn't about an angry Twitter mob making demands of a private company, it's about workers raising an issue with the company leadership and expecting an appropriate response (which does not necessarily mean removing content) The article is pretty sensationalized…

> But they should also listen to their employees who do the work that makes the platform run

Should they listen to all employees, about every single issue? What if only 1% if employees ask for it? Or 10%? Where’s the line?

> This article isn't about an angry Twitter mob making demands of a private company

I don’t work at Spotify but worked enough at big companies to disagree with that. Behavior of employees inside trendy tech companies is very much like angry Twitter mob.

Re: Spotify reportedly fighting with employees about hosting episodes of Joe Rogan

#132

Post by hnzix »

omosubi wrote: post #56
mikece wrote: post #4

I’m curious what his contract with them stipulates on these matters. As for the employees, they could contact Rogan and either ask to come on the show to discuss what they find so offensive. Joe will talk to anyone, let them have their say and explain their point of view. Arguing to censor his episode history only sends the message that Spotify isn’t a platform for intellectual curiosity and free speech.

I like Rogan's podcast but he definitely won't talk to anyone - When was the last time there was someone on that didn't agree with him on the major issue or issues they were brought on the podcast to discuss? They may quibble over certain things but at the end of the day he wants to have a fun conversation and arguing with trans rights people for 2 or 3 hours isn't going to happen. Also they've already censored his h…

> When was the last time there was someone on that didn't agree with him on the major issue or issues they were brought on the podcast to discuss?

Rogan's schtick is that he lets his guests explain their ideology without directly attacking it. Instead he has an assistant fact-check any claims they make, and Rogan is also very forthright about calling them out on logical inconsistencies - "you said x just before, now you're saying !x, can you explain how that makes sense?"

The spirit of open curiosity and honest discourse is important. It also gives some ideologues enough rope with which to hang themselves, eg the Milo Yiannopoulos incident.

Re: Spotify reportedly fighting with employees about hosting episodes of Joe Rogan

#133

Post by liability »

threeseed wrote: post #108
anonu wrote: post #103

Cancel culture at it's best. What happened to freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, freedom to choose. If Spotify were smart they wouldn't censor any of the podcasts. Instead they would put a Twitter like message warning the user... As a way to satisfy the cancel culture crowd. I don't care about Joe or his views. But I do care about people having choice and freedom

Spotify has the right to choose what is on their platform. Spotify employees have the right to voice their concerns if the company they work for is alienating them. But I guess that's not the kind of freedom you are interested in.

> But I guess that's not the kind of freedom you are interested in.

I do not see a suggestion by anonu that the people they disagree with should be deprived of their freedom.

To criticize people for saying something is not the same as saying they shouldn't have the right to say it. That would only be the case if somebody had an absolutely authoritarian mindset. It unnerves me how quick some are to conflate these positions, as though they view the world through an authoritarian lens and assume others must as well.

"People shouldn't say mean things" and "People shouldn't have the right to say mean things" are not equivalent statements unless you are an authoritarian.

Re: Spotify reportedly fighting with employees about hosting episodes of Joe Rogan

#134

Post by hervature »

pseudalopex wrote: post #129
hervature wrote: post #95

I am posting this because there seems to be a large misunderstanding about the Alex Jones episodes being "removed" by Spotify. I am also going to give you a warning. I am going to post a link to Infowars, yes, that Infowars. It is one of the few sources that actually attempts to clarify the story behind the "removed" episodes. If you are a reasonable person, you would take this opportunity to reevaluate the sources y…

Why would Rogan tell Jones instead of his fans?

That's a good question. Contractual obligations with Spotify? I've been pondering this for a while. It does seem somewhat plausible because some of the episodes removed weren't controversial. Rogan also hasn't commented on this. It's also unclear whether he would deny it even if it was false. I've also been wondering why would Alex Jones lie about this? If he was going to create a narrative, I would expect it to have some crazy "Democrat elite controlling the media" bend to it.

Re: Spotify reportedly fighting with employees about hosting episodes of Joe Rogan

#135

Post by ufmace »

tootie wrote: post #15
asquabventured wrote: post #8

Identity politics will destroy our country. Whatever happened to freedom of thought? Shameful

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts. Rogan is mostly an opinion guy but he has spread covid disinformation and hosted guests like Alex Jones who say things like Sandy Hook was staged. That's not harmless self-expression. Spotify is under no obligation to host anyone's content and certainly not required to pay $100M for content that is detrimental to society.

> hosted guests like Alex Jones who say things like Sandy Hook was staged

Did you actually listen to that episode? I did, and he explicitly said that he no longer believes that.

It's rather ironic that you are arguing that we should respect facts in the same post.

Re: Spotify reportedly fighting with employees about hosting episodes of Joe Rogan

#136

Post by qppo »

mikece wrote: post #50
threatofrain wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Spotify a platform for intellectual curiosity and free speech? On the matter of free speech, Spotify isn't a public square. Facebook isn't a public square. A masonic fraternity isn't a public square. One of the key things about public squares is that it's funded by public money and administered by public officials. How are people so keen on asking private companies to behave like public institutions... without ask…

> Is Spotify a platform for intellectual curiosity and free speech? Spotify wants to corner the market on popular podcasts. Of it’s very nature — anyone with anything or nothing to say can start one - podcasting might be the best modern example of free speech, and I believe podcasters know this. If they see Spotify as an entity that will require editorial modification or will refuse to post “certain episodes” then po…

Podcasting is in a weird spot right now where the strategy that most podcasters take is to be on as many platforms as possible and there's a cottage industry+ supporting that initiative. It's the same effect as syndication but it looks more like federation. And if you look at the most successful audio content distribution strategies over the last 100 years and ongoing, exclusivity has rarely worked. Fundamentally it requires a content creator to choose to release to a smaller market, which is different than other content that is far more expensive to finance or maintain distribution (like film/video).

Basically what I'm saying is that cornering podcasting isn't going to work. But inverting the market to be cornered to the syndication/creation side and not the distribution/consumption side there might be a more effective way. I'd suspect that eschewing both publicity and censorship would be critical to cornering that market. After all, Disney+* and Pornhub have content made with the same tools and sometimes the same people, while both retain their image.

+ if you want to see what I mean, turn on your adblocker and go to open.spotify.com and start browsing podcasts from ESPN, APM, and others and open the developer console. There are a number of interesting failures when ads are resolved, and a lot of little companies you've never heard of writing some cool networking infrastructure to distribute podcasts.

\* well maybe not Disney+. They might have a policy for this exact situation.

Re: Spotify reportedly fighting with employees about hosting episodes of Joe Rogan

#137

Post by rjtavares »

xfitm3 wrote: post #99
rjtavares wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced we're worse off than in previous decades. Granted, the type of views that are "offensive" changed and there were some clear power shifts (and from your statement I assume you're on the losing side of that shift), but having to conceal your views for fear of retribution was always a thing.

We absolutely are. We're more divided than ever. I am on the losing side of the shift. I never had to conceal my views for fear of retribution before. I could be in an echo chamber, but I am not alone in this sentiment.

In the 90s some politicians tried to ban gangsta rap, and there was an official policy that "prohibited any homosexual or bisexual person from disclosing their sexual orientation or from speaking about any homosexual relationships, including marriages or other familial attributes, while serving in the United States armed forces".

I'm not trying to negate your experience. I'm just adding context about other people's experience in a recent past.

Re: Spotify reportedly fighting with employees about hosting episodes of Joe Rogan

#138

Post by exogeny »

dkdk8283 wrote: post #64
mef79 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify has already made the decision to exclude multiple Joe Rogan episodes from their catalog, this is just a decision of where they draw their line.

This is unfortunate and unacceptable. Joe should have a free and censorship free place to discuss topics. We have lost our minds: the ability to freely and discuss literally any topic was an American staple. Now you don’t dare say something that could potentially offend someone. I could be fired if I said what I really think about some controversial issues and linked it to my identity. That’s not a world I enjoy livi…

Let's say in your heart of hearts that you earnestly thought that, for whatever reason, women couldn't be effective software engineers. If you said that in public, you should be fired because it would immediately call into question your ability to work within your team, your ability to respect your co-workers, and potentially bring negatively adverse financial consequences to your place of work and damage its reputation.

Now, I don't know what you actually believe, but it's worth noting that you currently have all the free speech you want and have always had. What you're arguing for is free speech AND no consequences, which isn't and was never guaranteed.

Re: Spotify reportedly fighting with employees about hosting episodes of Joe Rogan

#139

Post by cipher_system »

gadabout wrote: post #27
asquabventured wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has guests from all spectrums, I believe it's healthy to listen to all sides and debate them on their merits. Regarding your point about "harmful to society" I would argue that there are plenty of individuals (not myself) who would claim vulgar lyrics or promotion of drug use is "harmful to society" but I don't see those individuals having a voice and trying to cancel and deplatform those ideas.

> He has guests from all spectrums, I believe it's healthy to listen to all sides and debate them on their merits. One could easily argue that Joe does in fact not debate many of his guest and instead allow them to use his show as a platform if they so desire. > Regarding your point about "harmful to society" I would argue that there are plenty of individuals (not myself) who would claim vulgar lyrics or promotion of…

> One could easily argue that Joe does in fact not debate many of his guest and instead allow them to use his show as a platform if they so desire.

I haven't watched a lot of JRE but in general I see nothing wrong with people having the time to layout their thoughts and opinions more or less uninterrupted for an extended period of time and then listen to rebuttals and debate in comments or separate blog posts, videos etc.

The other end is political debates or interviews with opinionated journalists where they barely have time to say a sentence at a time. This doesn't have to be bad but a lot of time its just bickering and platitudes. It doesn't provide much depth.

Re: Spotify reportedly fighting with employees about hosting episodes of Joe Rogan

#140

Post by StillBored »

dogma1138 wrote: post #43
doopy1 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. He has a big enough following that he can launch his OWN platform to counteract censorship.

He is currently essentially has that he is on every platform, and he isn’t monetized on the likes if YouTube he does his own silly ads.

Which funny enough, IMHO, are some of the craziest things on his podcasts. I really want his assistant dude who looks up things on the computer at some point to be like "hey it says here that vitamin C hasn't been proven to prevent illness by all these studies"
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