According to a new industry report, Spotify has quietly deleted controversial episodes of “The Joe Rogan Experience.” As of this writing, 42 episodes of Rogan’s podcast have reportedly been scrubbed from the platform, and they include everything from right-wing reactionary figures like the Proud Boys who were present during the January 6 insurrection to comedians accused of sexual misconduct with minors. Via Huffpost:
Episodes that have been removed include interviews with far-right figures such as former Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos and Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, as well as four episodes with comedian Chris D’Elia, who last year was accused of “grooming” underage girls and soliciting child pornography. Three episodes with Bulletproof Coffee founder Dave Asprey were also deleted from the platform, DMN reported.
Asprey calls himself the “father of biohacking,” and it appears Spotify didn’t want to host his “high-fat diet” that has been roundly criticized for its unscientific methods. However, Spotify did not remove Rogan’s highly controversial interview with Alex Jones from October 2020, which caused significant backlash after Jones spent hours spouting anti-vaccination and anti-mask theories.
Yet while the platform didn’t port over Rogan’s prior interview with the conspiracy theorist, not giving him any trouble over the new episode in the fall was a good sign for the podcast host. During a recent episode in March, Rogan revealed that he’s not concerned with Spotify refusing to host certain episodes as long as they don’t get in his way. “There were a few episodes they didn’t want on their platform, and I was like ‘okay, I don’t care,” Rogan said. “But other than that, in terms of what I do in the future, the big test was having Alex Jones on.”
(Via Digital Music News & Huffpost)