Joe Rogan vs Neil Young: a speech / marketplace issue

Who gets to stamp the label Misinformation or Disinformation on opinions that are months or years later found to be accurate?

It has happened at least a handful of times since Covid hit our shores.

I disagree that it is a speech issue. No one is arresting Rogan in the middle of the night. He has a huge platform (much bigger than Neil Young) and is actively using it (and to his credit he has not been screaming about being "silenced"). So is Young. If you believe the answer to bad free speech is more free speech, this is a perfect case.

As to the marketplace issue, that is the entire issue we've been seeing through (and before) the pandemic. There is truly serious money to be made by spreading misinformation. Facebook and other social media platforms have made serious bank for themselves and for misinformation brokers. This is the first time we've really seen even the slightest potential negative financial impact to a company amplifying misinformation.

From his explanation I don't fault Rogan here. I have never listened to his show so I don't think I can say much else. However, the fact that he's popular doesn't necessarily confer value or trust in his choices.



It's particularly difficult as the virus continually mutates. What was literally true with one variant may not be the correct course of action with the next new variant. A little understanding as to the difficulty of focusing on a moving target and developing the proper response under changing conditions would be nice.

Speaking about misinformation, "Chuck E.'s In Love" was written and performed by Rickie Lee Jones, not Joni Mitchell!

Oh my god re Rickie Lee Jones!! Hahaha. I didn’t catch that. 🤦‍♀️ He won’t live that down.

Btw— kudos to you for not judging because you haven’t listened. I think the worst criticism comes from other people who haven’t listened as well.

I slashed speech / marketplace because of the point you make above. It’s a combination of the two. I do think it’s working out in a good way as you mention, basically ‘add your speech to that speech if you disagree’ — I mean, that’s my favorite thing!

I never heard of him until recently, had no idea who he was.

If you're talking about this Rogan guy, ditto.

Yep, never heard of Joe Rogan until I read an article about Neil Young, looks like quite a few other artists are following Neil and pulling their songs.

I don't even know what Rogan was saying... I heard about Neil Young and Joni Mitchell pulling out, but didn't bother reading why. Guess I'll go have a look. Whatever happened to free speech? Unless it's hate speech, of course.

I read he was putting out quite a bit of misinformation about COVID.

Okay, this is what it was all about:

"As an infectious disease epidemiologist and research fellow at Boston’s Children’s Hospital who debunks health misinformation on Instagram —where she has more than 380,000 followers — Jessica Malaty Rivera regularly receives tips from her followers about viral content to debunk. A few weeks ago, her followers started sending her a link to an episode of the Joe Rogan Experience, the most popular podcast in the world. The episode was an interview with Dr. Robert Malone, a virologist who touts himself as one of the architects of mRNA technology.

Rivera was familiar with Rogan, as well as Malone. She knew that Malone had been banned from Twitter for promoting Covid-19 misinformation, and that he had been making the rounds in conservative media circles undermining the efficacy of the vaccine. When she watched the interview, she was horrified to see that he espoused various conspiratorial and baseless beliefs, from the idea that “mass formation psychosis” is responsible for people believing in the efficacy of vaccines; to the claim popular among anti-vaxxers that hospitals are financially incentivized to falsely diagnose Covid-19 deaths. The episode featuring Malone went viral, and was shared widely in right-wing media circles as well as on Facebook, where the link on Spotify has been shared nearly 25,000 times, according to CrowdTangle data."

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/covid-misinformation-joe-rogan-spotify-petition-1282240/

And Rogan's claims about getting myocarditis were fact-checked here and found to be false:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GDb1qDEaag

He interviewed a variety of doctors and regular people who had varying opinions about masks, vaccinations, and a multitude of unrelated issues. He didn’t pretend to have a professional opinion.

He interviewed Dr. S Gupta and others who agree with the national narrative—which btw has changed a few times.

But maybe you’ll check it out.🙂

Rogan has invited pro vaccine people on and given them a fair if skeptical hearing. He pretty much accepts anti-vaxxers at face value. He talks about a lot more than vaccines and has a loyal following including infamous NFL anti-vaxxer Aaron Rogers who has cited Rogan as the source of his beliefs.

Why anyone would put their faith in a bloody talk show host who isn't a medical expert is absolutely asinine.

Thanks for looking around. I’m going to follow up on what you have—see exactly what he said. But, I know he uses a disclaimer about not being considered medical advice.

He's personable, bills himself as a straight talking skeptic. That appeals to people. His podcast on Spotify is its most listened to show (which is why he is generating such a response.) Rogan's response is fairly interesting in that he does not double down, instead saying he would try to have “more experts with differing opinions right after I have the controversial ones.”

Exactly ... I think this whole thing about leaving a marketplace because you don't like what some person says no matter how idiotic it is...I don't know if Rogan maps an idiot or not not placing judgement on what this dude has to say ... Is just plain old dumb.

Dumb why? Because now you gave the dude free publicity and are causing the actual opposite to happen. Makes people curious as to what this guy has to say and who he is...whereas the majority of the public would have been pleasantly ignorant of him if Young never did anything.

But both characters have the freedom to do what they want...even if it is dumb.

While some people may have never heard of Rogan, he's a national figure with a big following and has been prominently mentioned by Aaron Rogers (and that mention has been in the press multiple times). I've never listened to him, but I knew who he was even before this current kerfuffle. I think the pushback has been useful if only in getting Rogan to reevaluate his position or at least to offer a more balanced selection of guests.

Having watched that video, I have to say I agree with you. He sounds quite reasonable and not a wingnut. He invited pro and con re: Covid. I also like that they're going to address the issue with the various suggestions Spotify came up with. Remember Howard Stern?

What happened to free speech? Has it been cancelled?