Spotify Censors Episodes of Joe Rogan's Podcast

Spotify has mass-deleted at least 70 episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience as the platform faces further calls to remove Rogan’s show from its platform. The deletions have nothing to do with coronavirus “misinformation” as they primarily date from before the pandemic, including shows with anti-woke academic Gad Saad, director Kevin Smith, and comedian and podcaster Theo Von. This is not the first time that Spotify has censored episodes of the show since signing a megadeal with the comedian.

Gizmodo reports that Spotify has removed at least 70 episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience from its platform on Friday. Breitbart News has reported extensively on recent attempts to censor Joe Rogan from the Spotify platform, with musicians such as Neil Young demanding that the music streaming service remove Rogan or remove his music from the platform. Spotify promptly removed Young’s music catalog from the platform.

HOLLYWOOD, CA – MAY 21: Musician Neil Young performs onstage at the 4th Annual Light Up The Blues at the Pantages Theatre on May 21, 2016 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images for Autism Speaks)

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek ( Andrew Burton /Getty)

Recently, the White House urged Spotify to “do more” about Rogan on the platform and to address coronavirus “misinformation.” Spotify has already agreed to add information labels to Rogan’s podcasts that discuss the coronavirus. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek recently reaffirmed his commitment to keeping Rogan on the platform, telling Staff it is not the company’s place to “dictate the discourse” of Rogan’s show.

However, Spotify has previously removed JRE episodes that apparently contained content the tech giant didn’t approve of. One of Rogan’s former guests, author and podcaster Michael Malice, noted according to the website JREMissing.com, two of his episodes had been removed.

Other removed episodes include those with Gad Saad, a Lebanese-born Canadian Professor of Marketing at the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University, Theo Von, an extremely popular comedian with his own podcasts and online following, Tom Segura, another successful comedian and longtime friend of Rogans with specials on Netflix, and Kevin Smith, a comedian, writer, and film director known for the Clerks and Jay and Silent Bob series of films.

Around 70 episodes were deleted in total. Gizmodo notes that none of the pulled episodes appear to have anything to do with coronavirus misinformation or the ongoing controversy around Rogan. Rogan’s interview with Dr. Robert Malone, a scientist whose work contributed to the creation of mRNA vaccines, is still available on the platform.