Irish Examiner view: Spotify has battle on its hands to regain public trust

It has work to do to assure a lot of people that their motivation is principled

The fact the spat with Neil Young and Joni Mitchell has cost Spotify an estimated $2bn in market capitalisation in the past week has obviously focused minds at Spotify. Picture: PA

In the wake of the decision by rock legends Neil Young and Joni Mitchell to remove their music from the streaming giant Spotify because of Covid misinformation on the platform, it has become obvious, yet again, that big business — big tech especially — is more concerned about profit than morality.

In the face of other artists following the example of Young and Mitchell because of fake information about vaccines — particularly on the popular The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, for which it paid $100m for exclusive rights to — Spotify
announced that it was working to add a content advisory to any podcast episode which includes a discussion on Covid-19.

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The fact this spat has cost Spotify an estimated $2bn in market capitalisation in the past week has obviously focused minds at the company, but its massive investment in the Rogan podcast has reigned in hopes in the artistic community that the podcaster and his alleged spreading of misinformation will be stopped completely..

Each episode of The Joe Rogan Experience reaches an estimated 11m listeners, but the host’s assertion yesterday that two recent airings which contained guests who shared Covid conspiracy theories simply featured “credentialed people” with opinions that are “different from the mainstream” rings hollow.

Spotify and Rogan now have a battle on their hands to regain widespread trust in the face of principled opposition. They also have much work to do to assure a lot of people that their motivation is also principled and not simply profit-oriented.