In 2001, Joe Rogan began hosting the hit cable show « Fear Factor » alongside contestants eating cockroaches and confronting their arachnophobia.
Twenty-one years later, Rogan …
In 2001, Joe Rogan began hosting the hit cable show « Fear Factor » alongside contestants eating cockroaches and confronting their arachnophobia. Twenty-one years later, Rogan is at the center of controversy over the false information on his wildly popular podcast « The Joe Rogan Experience. » The podcast’s exclusive home on Spotify has drawn the music streaming platform into a years-long struggle to balance freedom of speech and content moderation on the internet. In the process, the comedian and former reality show host has emerged as a central figure in the cultural and political clash. Spotify paid a reported $100 million for the rights to « The Joe Rogan Experience » in May 2020, a move that put it up against Apple and Google in the podcasting race. Rogan, whose show was already immensely popular, quickly became an even more controversial figure — and presented Spotify with one of its first major moderation challenges. Rogan has lauded the horse drug ivermectin — which is disproven as an effective medicine against the disease — as a COVID-19 cure, said Americans were « hypnotized » into wearing masks, and has advised young, healthy people that they don’t need to get vaccinated against COVID-19 (while claiming to be pro-vaccine.) In response to criticism, he said on his podcast: « I’m not a doctor — I’m a fucking moron. I’m not a respected source of information. » Respected or not, an estimated 11 million listeners tune in to each of his episodes on Spotify, and his show was the site’s most popular podcast of 2021 globally.
