Legendary singer Neil Young has had enough with the streaming service Spotify and has pulled his songs from the service for their role in exposing Covid-19 misinformation on Joe Rogan’s podcasts. He urges other artists to do the same and boycott their music from Spotify as well.
According to reports in The Hollywood Reporter Young decided to leave the streaming service due to Spotify spreading Covid-19 misinformation about vaccines. They decided to keep Joe Rogan over him and remove Neil Young’s music but it was mutual.
Watch the MSNBC/YouTube video here:
Young mentioned in a follow-up letter on Wednesday that Spotify represented a 60 percent stake in streaming revenue which amounted to “a huge loss for [his] record company to absorb,” but that he moved forward with removing his catalog because he “could not continue to support Spotify’s life-threatening misinformation to the music-loving public.”
He said in a statement from the Hollywood Reporter:
“I truly want to thank the many, many people who have reached out to me thanking me for taking this position — people who are health professionals on the front lines, people who have lost loved ones to COVID or who are worried for their own children and families. I have never felt so much love coming from so many,” Young wrote in Wednesday’s letter. “I sincerely hope that other artists and record companies will move off the Spotify platform and stop supporting Spotify’s deadly misinformation about COVID.”
It is noted that in December, a group of doctors called on Spotify to mitigate the spread of disinformation on its platform shortly after Rogan featured known vaccine skeptic, Dr. Robert Malone who has promoted baseless vaccines stories on his podcast.
Meanwhile, more artists have followed suit in exiting Spotify; including Joni Mitchell and Nils Lofgren. Could more artists stage a boycott too? It seems very likely as the war wages onward against Spotify’s platform continues.