Spotify CEO Daniel Ek stood by Joe Rogan despite mounting pressure to take action against the podcast host for spreading Covid-19 misinformation and his history of using racial slurs.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek stood by Joe Rogan over the weekend despite mounting pressure on the streaming service to take action against its conspiracy theory-pushing podcast host. In a memo Sunday to Spotify employees, Ek condemned Rogan’s history of using „racially insensitive language“ but said „silencing“ him would be a mistake. Rogan has publicly apologized two weeks in a row: first for parroting Covid-19 conspiracy theories, and more recently about a video — shared by the neo-soul artist India. Arie — that shows him repeatedly using racial slurs on several episodes of his show. In the compilation video, Rogan repeatedly uses the N-word, in one clip, and refers to a Black neighborhood as „Planet of the Apes.“ On Friday, he removed 70 episodes of his podcast, „The Joe Rogan Experience,“ that contained offensive language from Spotify. Spotify is clearly — and desperately — hoping that will tamp down the controversy over its most popular podcast host.
