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.
