In response to the recent ultimatum that Neil Young gave to Spotify, the audio streaming platform appears to have removed the songs of the mentioned musician.
With that, it clearly showed that Spotify chose The Joe Rogan Experience podcast over the legendary songwriter.
Spotify Deletes Neil Young Music
According to a statement released by Spotify on Wednesday, Jan. 26, through NPR, the firm is in the process of removing Neil Young's songs from its streaming platform.
For background information, Young had written an open letter through his own website on Monday, Jan. 24, requesting that his management and record label to withdraw his music off the streaming company in protest of podcaster Joe Rogan's distribution on the platform.
Rolling Stone reported that the said letter, which was addressed to his manager and an executive at Warner Music Group, stated that "I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines - potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them."
For those unfamiliar, the audio streaming app is the official medium for Rogan's podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, which has a $100 million contract with a company, as previously reported.
In the previous year, several anti-vaccine campaigners and conspiracy theorists have been on Rogan's show.
These individuals advocated unproven medicines such as ivermectin and spread false information about COVID-19 vaccinations.
Slashgear also noted that Spotify does not have a misinformation policy, which implies they are unable to speak out against the substance of Rogan's podcast.
Regardless of the fact that the program includes a lot of anti-vaccine misinformation that supports anti-vax movements, it has millions of listeners and has been shared widely on social media.
Read Also : iOS 15.3 is Out Now, and Releases a Safari Patch! 3 iOS Browsing Tips To Be A Safari Master
The removal of Young from Spotify was originally reported by The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday afternoon.
His departure from the audio streaming service puts him as one of the most well-known musicians not to be included on Spotify, where his songs have gathered hundreds of millions of streams.
Spotify Regrets Neil's Decision, Open to Welcome Him Back
NPR furthered that majority of Young's music was taken down from Spotify as of Wednesday evening.
A Spotify spokeswoman said in a message to NPR on Wednesday afternoon that "We want all the world's music and audio content to be available to Spotify users. With that comes great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom for creators. We have detailed content policies in place and we've removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to COVID since the start of the pandemic. We regret Neil's decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon."
Despite this issue, Spotify remains the world's biggest audio streaming platform.
The company claims to have 381 million users in 184 countries and markets throughout the world.
