What is Spotify's policy on Covid-19 misinformation amid Joe Rogan row?

Musicians, including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, have started boycotting the platform in protest against the controversial podcaster

Singer Neil Young, left, demanded that Spotify remove his music from the platform which he said is spreading vaccine disinformation via podcaster Joe Rogan, right. AFP

Neil Young started something of a hurricane when he told Spotify to remove his music from the streaming platform if it didn't drop The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

It was a protest against the controversial podcaster's content, which includes spreading Covid-19 misinformation.

Since Young, 76, a polio survivor, made good on his ultimatum, other musicians such as Joni Mitchell and Nils Lofgren have followed suit in backing the Rockin' in the Free World singer.

Joni Mitchell followed Neil Young's lead by removing her music from Spotify in 'solidarity'. Reuters

Spotify's market shares reportedly fell by about $2.1 billion over a three-day span after it all happened.

Young isn't the first to air his grievances against Rogan though, as earlier this month a group of nearly 300 doctors and health professionals wrote an open letter to the Swedish audio streaming platform asking it to "implement a misinformation policy", citing specific concerns with The Joe Rogan Experience and its "concerning history of broadcasting misinformation, particularly regarding the Covid-19 pandemic".

This includes inviting widely discredited scientist Robert Malone on to an episode of the show, during which he promoted an anti-vaccine rally. The infectious disease specialist has been banned from Twitter for spreading Covid-19 misinformation.

We apply our policies consistently and objectively. They are not influenced by the media cycle, calls from any one individual or from external partners

Dustee Jenkins,
Spotify's head of global communications and public relations

Spotify's response to Young was: "We regret Neil's decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon." This is despite the fact the company also said it has policies in place to remove misleading content from its platform and that it has taken down more than 20,000 podcast episodes related to Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic.

So why is Spotify not taking heed of warnings from professionals and musicians, and pulling Rogan's dubious episodes, as it does with other shows?

It turns out there are loopholes in its guidelines that mean Rogan's content "didn't meet the threshold for removal" after a review by Spotify, according to The Verge.

The technology website reported that the platform's head of global communications and public relations, Dustee Jenkins, posted a message to the company Slack, addressing internal employee concerns over the podcast, saying it had reviewed several controversial episodes. She said they employ an "internal team of some of the best experts in the space" and that they also work with third parties who "advise us and help us evolve our policies".

'The Joe Rogan Experience' podcast didn't 'meet the threshold' for removal as per Spotify's guidelines. Getty Images

So what do these policies entail? The Verge viewed the internal company content guidelines, which had been in place "for years", according to Jenkins, but had not yet been made public. It includes a section for "content that promotes dangerous, false or deceptive content about healthcare that may cause offline harm and/or pose a direct threat to public health".

This includes: denying the existence of Aids or Covid-19; encouraging the deliberate contracting of a series of life-threatening disease or illness; suggesting that consuming bleach can cure various illnesses and diseases; suggesting that wearing a mask will cause the wearer imminent, life-threatening physical harm; promoting or suggesting that the vaccines are designed to cause death.

This means, for example, that podcasters can say the vaccines cause death, but not that they are designed to cause death, or they can discourage mask-wearing, as long as they aren't saying it can cause "life-threatening" harm.

These guidelines also leave it open for Rogan to discourage vaccinations among young people, which he has done, and promote the off-label use of the anti-parasitic drug Ivermectin to treat Covid-19, which he has also done.

“We apply our policies consistently and objectively,” wrote Jenkins, who hadn't responded to the publication's direct request for comment. “They are not influenced by the media cycle, calls from any one individual or from external partners. It doesn’t mean I personally agree with this content. But I trust our policies and the rationale behind them.”