Mitchell joins in with Young’s anti-vaxxer Spotify protest
JONI MITCHELL, the Canadian singersongwriter, has joined her compatriot Neil Young in a boycott of Spotify in protest against the streaming service funding a podcast by Joe Rogan that features Covid-19 misinformation.
The Grammy-award-winning singer, 78, has 3.7million monthly listeners on Spotify, but wants to take all of her music off the platform because she says “irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives.”
Her announcement comes days after Spotify started taking down songs by Young in response to his ultimatum over the podcast, saying: “They can have Rogan or Young. You Not both.”
Mitchell, who is best known for songs such as Big Yellow Taxi and Clouds, said :“I stand stain solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical communities on this issue.”
“I’ve decided to remove all my music from Spotify,” she added a in a statement on her website.
Rogan has regularly stirred controversy with his views on the pandemic, government mandates and the use of Covid vaccines.
He signed a £75 million deal with Spotify in 2020 and has an estimated 11 million listeners per episode.
The musclebound UFC commentator says he is not an anti-vaxxer, but he has used hish platform to promote–and guests who promote– base less “theories” about the pandemic.
These include the assertion that young and healthy people do not need the vaccine, the idea that “mass formation psychosis” is responsible for people believing in the efficacy of vaccines and that hospitals are financially incentivised to falsely diagnose Covid-19 deaths.
Spotify said it had robust policies to remove misleading content and had taken down more than 20,000 podcast episodes related to Covid-19.
Poking fun at the th situation, the British musician James Jame Blunt tweeted: “If Spotify doesn’t im immediately remove Joe Rogan, I will release re new music on to the platform.”