Pressuring Spotify to Balance out Joe Rogan Won't Work for Two Reasons

AP Photo/Gregory Payan

The left has become somewhat laser-focused on podcast host Joe Rogan, and for a very obvious reason; he’s challenging the established narrative by allowing for conversations to occur from both sides of the aisle. This is more dangerous to the left than anything as the left’s arguments typically only survive in a vacuum. The moment the monologue becomes a dialogue, the narrative collapses and the power structure they’ve created around that narrative is threatened.

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(READ: Joe Rogan’s Comments About Inviting Both Sides On His Show Won’t Appease Those Angry With Him)

In response, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek is telling those angry with them in a statement that they’re going to work to make things more balanced:

Based on the feedback over the last several weeks, it’s become clear to me that we have an obligation to do more to provide balance and access to widely-accepted information from the medical and scientific communities guiding us through this unprecedented time. These issues are incredibly complex.

Ek may as well have pat them on the head and told them everything’s going to be okay. He, as well as anyone with two brain cells to rub together, knows that this statement is pretty much nothing but a statement meant to make it look like something is being done. The truth is, nothing can be done at all and for two reasons.

Firstly, Spotify has no control over who appears on Rogan’s podcast as per their contract. Rogan is free to do as he likes, and Spotify isn’t going to clamp down on that anytime soon, or at least while Rogan is bringing in around 11 million listeners a show. The calls for Spotify to “hashtag do something” is going to fall on deaf ears, and rightfully so. The calls to get Rogan in line are, bottom line, calls for censorship because they don’t like that Rogan is tearing off the veil the powers that be on the left keep trying to put over everyone’s eyes by simply talking to everyone, not just the approved list of leftist “experts.”

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But secondly, providing sources that embrace leftist talking points isn’t balancing anything out, and listeners know this. They already go to Rogen for a balanced conversation. What Spotify is effectively saying is that they’ll give the left an official-looking resource on their platform to spew their decrees, but even despite all of that, it won’t move the needle one iota against Rogan or make anyone believe the left any more than they already do. The entire point of people listening to Rogan is because they’re getting the strong sense that there’s something missing from the conversation and mainstream sources aren’t giving the whole story.

It’ll just be one more thing that’s more or less ignored on Spotify.

The funny part is that Ek probably knows this as well. He’s literally just throwing candy at the angry toddlers throwing tantrums to shut them up.

Rogan will still continue to have his listenership despite any content warnings or leftist narrative fountains. They might as well just take the “L” on this and walk away.

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