Joe Rogan is mostly known for commentating on UFC fights and his podcasts that he uploads to Spotify. For the last few weeks, Neil Young has had a problem with what Joe Rogan said in one of his podcasts. He decided to take action and stop this type of misinformation from being spread.

Last year, on episodes #1757 and #1747 of The Joe Rogan Experience, Rogan said some things about Covid-19 that could lead people in the wrong direction. Rogan claimed that the Covid-19 vaccine wasn’t really a vaccine but a therapy for genes. He also said, “I think you should get vaccinated if you’re vulnerable.”

A message sent out for Spotify from Young says “Rogan or Young. Not both.” What Young was saying is that he would either remove his music from Spotify or Spotify would have to remove Joe Rogan’s podcast. Young also wasn’t the only one who threatened to remove their music from Spotify. Joni Mitchell, Nils Lofgren, India Arie, Graham Nash, and Failure all did the same.

So, who is Neil Young? Neil Young is a Canadian folk, rock, and country artist who received many awards for his music. He survived polio as a kid, and many claim his experience with this deadly disease was his motivation to reach out to Spotify in an attempt to save others from illnesses. Neil Young made a couple of popular songs.

Young has faced many difficult life-changing challenges in his past. He’s been through a lot of health problems and family struggles. His father left his family at 12 to be with another woman. He bought a home for 3.6 mil and it burned to the ground, for a second time. Neil stated, “I have lost my home before to a California fire, now another.”

Spotify made their response. They removed Young’s music from Spotify and they updated their policy. The new policy is under Dangerous Content in the Spotify Platform Rules. They didn’t want to cancel Joe Rogan, but they also needed to do something to try and make everyone happy. 

The co-founder of Spotify, Daniel EK, said, “We know we have a critical role to play in supporting creator expression while balancing it with the safety of our users. In that role, it is important to me that we don’t take on the position of being content censor while also making sure that there are rules in place and consequences for those who violate them.” 

Rogan made a 10-minute video on Instagram explaining and apologizing for what’s going on and is going to try and do better. He says he never tried to spread misinformation. In the video, he explains that he was just trying to have conversations with the people featured in his podcast. He knows that he is wrong sometimes, but he can correct himself. 

Carter Johnson and I have interviewed a few of the staff in the Sartell High School on this controversy and most of them said similar things. We asked the following questions to Roy Snyder, Kristy Gosch, Jason Menth, and Noel Meyer. Do you know about their situation? How should Spotify handle the situation? And finally, do you think Rogan is racist?

Q: Do you know about this situation?

Kristy said she’s “Heard Joe Rogan is anti-vax” and she knows Spotify dropped Neil’s music and kept Joe Rogan’s. Snyder said, “Joe Rogan knows he isn’t a doctor.”

Q: How should Spotify handle the situation?

Snyder said, “Spotify can make any choice they want with their platform.” It is completely their choice on what they want to do about this situation. He also said “It sounds like Young dislikes Rogan or his comments enough to not want to share a platform with Rogan. Menth said, “Is it a freedom of speech thing, or is it a misinformation thing?” Joe Rogan claims he wasn’t trying to spread misinformation but just bring up controversy. Nobody would know except him, but if he was trying to spread misinformation then there might be bigger consequences.

Q: Do you think Rogan is racist?

Menth said, “He definitely said some racist things that were not okay.” Meyer said, “Using the N-word a lot is not good.” Although the N-word is bad either way, they also mentioned that it’s about the intentions of the word that makes a person racist.