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Spotify secretly deleted 113 Joe Rogan Experience podcast episodes

Spotify reportedly removed 113 episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast amid ongoing claims of COVID-19 misinformation and racism.
Spotify secretly deleted 113 Joe Rogan Experience podcast episodes

The past few weeks have not been good for the world's most popular podcaster, Joe Rogan. In January 2022, the internet star was criticised for allegedly spreading "life-threatening COVID misinformation," sparking an exodus of artists from Spotify.

More recently, Rogan came under fire after a clip of him using racial slurs in prior podcast episodes went viral; something Rogan called was "regretful and shameful." At the same time, Spotify stocks continued to plummet, resulting in over $2 billion in losses.

While Spotify CEO Daniel Ek initially defended Rogan amid the COVID misinformation controversy, a new tracking website, "JREMissing", reported that Spotify secretly deleted over 100 Joe Rogan Experience podcast episodes this week.

Spotify is quietly deleting Joe Rogan Experience podcast episodes

Accordingly, the yanked episodes are seemingly unrelated to COVID-19 misinformation drama but instead featured several right-wing pundits or conspiracy theorists, including fake-news host Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Owen Benjamin, among others.

113 episodes of Joe Rogan's podcast are missing from Spotify
113 episodes of Joe Rogan's podcast are missing from Spotify. (Picture: JREMissing)

Interestingly, Spotify has not deleted JRE episode #1757 featuring Dr Robert Malone, perhaps the most contentious episode of Rogan's COVID series. Indeed, this episode resulted in many medical and scientific experts lambasting the service for allowing Rogan to spread misleading information about COVID-19 vaccinations.

Although Rogan addressed the Spotify controversy in a lengthy video uploaded to Instagram, noting that his show has gotten "out of control" and vowing to "do [his] best to balance things out", it seems many progressives remain fixated on attempting to cancel him.

joe rogan jremissing podcast episodes missing spotify drama
Joe Rogan responded to the Spotify drama, promising to "balance things out" in his podcast. (Picture: Spotify)

At this time, Spotify has not formally explained why they are removing JRE podcast episodes; however, the apparently random purging suggests that they are not connected to more recent drama.

Ironically, Spotify's decision to delete JRE episodes contradicts their latest stance regarding content censorship. In an open letter, Ek said the company does not "take on the position of being [a] content censor" and would balance "creator expression" with the safety of its users.

The Joe Rogan Experience is the most popular podcast in the world
The Joe Rogan Experience is the most popular podcast in the world. (Picture: Spotify)

Ek further added that they would implement content advisory warnings for all podcasts discussing COVID-19 and publish new policies regarding content considered "acceptable" on the platform.

"These policies were developed by our internal team in concert with a number of outside experts and are updated regularly to reflect the changing safety landscape," Ek added.

After the drama, Rogan took a week-long break from uploaded but returned to Spotify on Friday, 4th February 2022.

 

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Featured image courtesy of Spotify and YouTube / JRE.