Spotify CEO Defends Keeping Transphobic Joe Rogan Podcasts Online

[Deleted member 18944]

In a Spotify all-hands company meeting on Wednesday, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek defended keeping transphobic content from hugely popular podcaster Joe Rogan on the audio platform, who earlier this year signed an exclusive licensing deal with the company likely worth tens of millions of dollars.
Some staff inside the company feel alienated by Spotify's hosting of certain The Joe Rogan Experience (JRE) episodes, according to copies of some of the questions presented to the meeting obtained by Motherboard. The news signals how Spotify, as it moves into the podcasting space beyond music, is facing content moderation decisions more commonly associated with social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter. Spotify has already removed JRE episodes with some right-wing figures, including Alex Jones and Gavin McInnes.

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One of the submitted questions was "Many LGBTQAI+/ally Spotifiers feel unwelcome and alienated because of leadership's response in JRE conversations. What is your message to those employees?" Another was "Why has Spotify chosen to ignore Spectrum ERG's guidance about transphobic content in the JRE catalog?," referring to a group of Spotify workers who focus on related issues.

At the meeting, Ek also told employees not to leak to the media, noting "If we can't have open, confidential debates, we will have to move those discussions to closed doors.

"Others have concerns specifically over a recent episode," Ek said. "And Joe Rogan and the episode in question have been reviewed extensively. The fact that we aren't changing our position doesn't mean we aren't listening. It just means we made a different judgment call."

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Spotify CEO Defends Keeping Transphobic Joe Rogan Podcasts Online

Multiple sources inside Spotify described an all-hands meeting in which Spotify CEO Daniel Ek discussed the company’s handling of the controversial podcaster.

www.vice.com

 

[xxracerxx]

day late

 

[Platy]

i mean it is the joe rogan podcast, if they let it go till now .... transphobia is nothing =P

 

[Grimm Fandango]

Spotify CEO Defends Keeping Transphobic Joe Rogan Podcasts Online News

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg8jq4/spotify-joe-rogan-transphobic Having discussions and meetings with concerned parties is nice, but it's all just empty gestures if there's never been willingness to change things. Obviously Spotify and Daniel Ek knew full well of Rogan before they made...

www.resetera.com

 

[Squarehard]

 

[MisterAnderson]

Is there context or any info on the content in the episode as to what was discussed that was transphobic?

 

[Elrid]

so past stuff.

 

[Fat4all]

Is there context or any info on the content in the episode as to what was discussed that was transphobic?

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there's a bit in the article:

The specific episode of the Joe Rogan Experience Ek was referring to was from July, in which Rogan interviewed Abigail Shrier, author of the book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, according to one of the sources. From the opening moments of that podcast, Shrier associates transgender youth with those with autism; Shrier and Rogan spend parts of the episode explaining that young people are being pressured into transitioning by YouTube and other media.

"You realize that people are not looking at this objectively," Rogan said in the podcast. "They are activists and they have this agenda, and the agenda is very ideologically driven that anybody who even thinks they might be trans should be trans, are trans, and the more trans people the better."

In the book, Shrier invalidates the lived experience of trans people by comparing transitioning to adolescent phenomena like eating disorders, self-harm, or the occult, according to Men's Health. She also described wanting to transition as a "contagion" with the potential to infect other children, an entirely scientifically baseless idea, Men's Health noted.

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