Spotify continues to remove Joe Rogan episodes • Hacker News Board

Re: Spotify continues to remove Joe Rogan episodes

#221

Post by snicksnak » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 10:38 PM UTC

themolecularman wrote: post #209

snicksnak wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

always pay attention who you hire, especially in HR. Woke and activist HR hires woke and activist people, woke and activist people will cause you trouble and can wreck your whole ship. This is true for every industry but especially for media, just look what happened to the once so prestigious news outlets, all taken hostage.

I agree with another poster that Spotify employees should stand up on principle in opposition to the internal employees that are now running the asylum. I listen to JRE on Spotify and am not happy about the decision. Actually the first episode I listened to was an Alex Jones + Tim Dillon episode (Tim being a comic I like) that is now gone. And while I don't agree with Alex Jones, I listened to it because I expected i…

The Alex Jones and Tim Dillon episode is one of the best ones ever, very sad they pulled it, at least it's still on youtube (for now).

Re: Spotify continues to remove Joe Rogan episodes

#222

Post by anakaine » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 10:39 PM UTC

Traster wrote: post #90

idownvoted wrote: post #69

Whom does Spotify try to aquisice here? Their users? Their content creators? Or rather their staff? All 3 groups could be possible reasons. But given how little median content creators matter to the organization, users and staff are more likely. But if it were the users, then why buy Joe Rogan's users at all? Especially at a record braking price? This makes me believe it's more likely staff. If that is the case one h…

Spotify bought Rogan because they want his average listener, it's cheaper for them to stream a podcast than to pay royalties on a song. They also don't want to have to answer questions about why a podcaster they (quasi) employ is doing X controversial thing. So that's what they do, they buy him and drop the controversial bits. It's not really that hard to understand is it?

Until you remember that his most popular episodes, and those that keep people coming back, are some of the most controversial. Talking about drugs, legalisation, smoking blunts with celebrities, hunting, and frankly being an openly right wing fanatic with some pretty intolerant world views at times are why he has a big audience. Securing both celebrity, tackling those taboo topics, and being a reasonably good host of conversation propelled him. Taking away the controversy puts him back in the group with nearly every other celebrity with a podcast.

Re: Spotify continues to remove Joe Rogan episodes

#223

Post by themolecularman » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 10:39 PM UTC

basisword wrote: post #13

>> Rogan, on the other hand, has confirmed that Spotify removed certain shows as a condition of their $100 million agreement with him. “There were a few episodes they didn’t want on their platform, and I was like ‘okay, I don’t care’,” Rogan shared in a recent interview with guest Fahim Anwar. It's part of their deal. Nothing to see here.

> It's part of their deal. Nothing to see here.

That's not true. When Joe moved to Spotify his entire catalog didn't move, that's what he "didn't care about".

This is a new wave of canceled episodes. And there's no telling if these "activist" employees will find future episodes or more past episodes "problematic", in which case they may also be removed.

Re: Spotify continues to remove Joe Rogan episodes

#224

Post by gizmo385 » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 10:40 PM UTC

nickysielicki wrote: post #99

whimsicalism wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious where the line is for you. Is there any legal content where it is permissible that Spotify doesn't want to host it?

Definitely, but Joe Rogan is nowhere near that line. I don't have a problem with the platform restricting content. I have a problem with the behavior of the employees reaching outside of their role to forward their political goals. If your job is to curate content, and you disagree with the content of JRE, you would have stopped the deal from happening in the first place.

Many employees at Spotify did object to signing Joe Rogan.

Re: Spotify continues to remove Joe Rogan episodes

#225

Post by reducesuffering » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 10:41 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #142

bigmattystyles wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a another group - ephemeral online mobs - People not involved with the content at hand in any way, shape or form contribute to a reactionary admonition and I'm sure businesses just want to avoid the controversy altogether. I don't know about Rogan for instance, but Hulu removed 4 episodes of sunny because of racist caricatures. They certainly were racist but the joke was on the characters using the caricature…

The Sunny in Philadelphia thing makes no sense at all. Supposedly, Tina Fey pre-emptively asked to remove some of her own 30 rock episodes and that caused others to need to look like they’re doing something lest they be caught up in a PR storm. Makes zero sense in the context of comedies using it as the butt of jokes though.

That was the canary in the coal mine for me that activist mob outrage is getting out of hand. Another case of Gell Mann amnesia. When it’s a topic I’m extremely familiar with, the preemptive removal or outrage doesn’t make any sense.

Those episodes literally had a discussion about the problems of blackface, and the point of the show is that the characters are terrible people and that’s why the characters did it.[0]

Like you said, all nuance is lost in proactively defending against the online activist mob and we lose good discussion in the process.

[0] https://youtu.be/-0L_oJMhcs0

Re: Spotify continues to remove Joe Rogan episodes

#226

Post by asquabventured » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 10:41 PM UTC

ethbr0 wrote: post #203

asquabventured wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cancel culture should be renamed cancer culture! It is TOXIC

It should be named what it is, and has always been: anti-free speech. The line is when you take actions designed to prevent someone else from ever speaking, or people hearing their speech, instead of (as is your right) loudly calling them a *ist.

Absolutely correct.

Re: Spotify continues to remove Joe Rogan episodes

#227

Post by runj__ » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 10:43 PM UTC

ljm wrote: post #169

bgorman wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not an absurd investment, Spotify is a commodity technology and taking away Joe Rogan podcast from their biggest competitor (Apple) provides much needed differentiation. Joe Rogan's podcast was the number one podcast on Apple Podcasts. Now it isn't available at all.

So you buy out Apple's number 1 podcast...and then Apple has another number 1 podcast. And you're sitting with a lame duck, as is evidenced by TFA. Is Spotify going to blow another 100 mil on that one and hope for the best? They messed up by betting large on a celebrity and ignoring the fact that Joe Rogan wasn't a cultural fit.

They tricked a bunch of users over to their (awful) podcast playing experience, playing (free) podcasts is cheaper than paying for music for your subscribers. I don't think they've made their money back on it yet but any user that plays a podcast is just free (or unspent) money for them.

Re: Spotify continues to remove Joe Rogan episodes

#228

Post by montagg » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 10:43 PM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #155

fareesh wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society in the west seems to not know how to deal with this new variety of bullying. By cloaking their bullying in the veil of righteousness, bullies are able to engage in self-aggrandisement to satisfy the tyrannical need to shape the world in the image that they desire, without engaging in the civilized discourse and debate that would preclude such decision making. The justification thrown around is that the cause…

>Society in the west seems to not know how to deal with this new variety of bullying Society in the West in contrast to... what exactly? Are you under the impression non-Western societies don't shape culture based on norms and expectations about what's proper or right? How is Spotify deleting episodes from their own platform tyranny? Jesus people have become so dramatic and whiny. Here's a crazy idea, if you don't wa…

Every channel owner should be forced to host any speech anyone makes. That's what free speech means. /s

Re: Spotify continues to remove Joe Rogan episodes

#229

Post by gizmo385 » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 10:43 PM UTC

JPKab wrote: post #164

idownvoted wrote: post #69

Whom does Spotify try to aquisice here? Their users? Their content creators? Or rather their staff? All 3 groups could be possible reasons. But given how little median content creators matter to the organization, users and staff are more likely. But if it were the users, then why buy Joe Rogan's users at all? Especially at a record braking price? This makes me believe it's more likely staff. If that is the case one h…

I worked for a tech company until recently that had allowed a relatively small group of activist employees to trigger HR policies that have been extremely detrimental to the morale and bottom line of the company. Cowardly HR departments who don't recognize that, by and large, the activist employees are mediocre at best, rather than remotely productive employees, has made things worse. Also, companies like Spotify see…

> Cowardly HR departments who don't recognize that, by and large, the activist employees are mediocre at best, rather than remotely productive employees, has made things worse.

This feels like you're projecting your opinion of these people and their political beliefs (which it appears you disagree with) onto their entire character and acting as if your opinion of them is the reality of the situation. Are there activist employees that are poor performers? Probably. But it feels more like you're trying to paint an entire subset of employees negatively because you disagree with their political stances.

Re: Spotify continues to remove Joe Rogan episodes

#230

Post by rsynnott » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 10:44 PM UTC

skohan wrote: post #71

Pfhreak wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> latest glacial shift in the accretion of content control by tech platforms It's weird that folks are pointing to a phenomena that's been going on for generations as if it is something novel. There have always been winners and losers in who controls the message. While tech companies seem to be aggregating control over some of the message, it's not like corporate America hasn't had control for a long, long time. Whet…

That may be true, but we're also witnessing one of those periods of consolidation of control right now . We could resign ourselves to history, or we could try to do something about it

Eh? Rogan is a podcaster. He is one of very few with a publisher/distributor; the vast majority are independent. 30 years ago (apart from pirate radio, I suppose) there was nothing like podcasts at all. Media has never been less centralised than today.