Joni Mitchell joins Young’s Spotify ban in protest at ‘anti-vax lies’
Star credits polio jab with saving her life as a child
LEGENDARY singer and songwriter Joni Mitchell ‘stood in solidarity’ with Neil Young last night as she ordered Spotify to remove all her songs in protest at vaccine ‘lies’ on the music-streaming platform.
‘Irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives,’ the 78-year-old musician wrote in a statement on her website. ‘I stand in solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical communities on this issue.’
Young, 76, last week ordered his music to be taken down in protest against claims made on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.
The Canadian singer, whose hits include Heart Of Gold and Rockin’ In The Free World, said: ‘They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.’
Both Mitchell and Young battled polio as children and have credited vaccines with saving their lives.
Rogan, 54, hosts Spotify’s most successful show with 200million monthly downloads, but he has caused controversy for his views about the pandemic.
As well as claiming that society is suffering from a ‘mass formation psychosis’ over the use of vaccines and that healthy, young people don’t need the jab, he has urged the use of Ivermectin, a horse deworming medicine, to treat Covid despite tests showing it is useless against the virus and could cause lasting harm in humans.
Young is a staunch advocate of vaccines, recently writing on his website: ‘Nothing new about vaccines. They have been there for a long time. Like me! Trust science.’
On Friday, the musician – who had 2.4million Spotify followers and more than six million monthly listeners on the streaming platform – said: ‘When I left Spotify, I felt better. I support free speech. I have never been in favour of censorship.
‘Private companies have the right to choose what they profit from, just as I can choose not to have my music support a platform that disseminates harmful information.’
Actress Daryl Hannah, who is married to Young, wrote: ‘Neil is free NOT to have his music on a platform that makes $$$ off disinformation that harms folks.’
A spokesman for Spotify said: ‘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’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.’
The company declined to say how many customers have cancelled their subscriptions but a #DeleteSpotify campaign was yesterday trending on Twitter.
Mitchell, whose hits Big Yellow Taxi and A Case Of You have each been streamed more than 100million times on Spotify, is a powerful voice in a growing revolt. She credits the polio vaccine with saving her life after she contracted the disease at the age of nine.
Her intervention comes as doctors, scientists and medical professionals last week wrote an open letter demanding episodes of Rogan’s show which ‘promoted falsehoods about Covid-19 vaccines’ be removed from Spotify.
‘Joe Rogan has repeatedly spread false claims on his podcast provoking distrust in science and medicine,’ it said. ‘He has discouraged vaccination in young people… and spread a number of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.’
Last week, Spotify was briefly forced to close its overwhelmed customer complaints service and saw 15 per cent wiped off its stock market valuation.
‘Irresponsible people are spreading lies’