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The Attacks on Joe Rogan
By Ben Owen
Joe Rogan has the most listened-to podcast on Spotify. Joe started the “Joe Rogan Experience” in 2009 during his time hosting the NBC show “Fear Factor”. The podcast remains popular offering audiences diversity in both the personalities and occupations of his guests. His estimated viewership per episode is around 11 million, more than all the late-night hosts on tv, getting over 3 times Tucker Carlson's nightly show. It should also be noted that the episodes are now around three hours each. Rogan was brought to Spotify to gain them paid subscribers and ad revenue, but his controversial opinions, including his views on politics, vaccines, cancel culture, and his controversial guests have gotten him in a tough spot.. The result is pressure from the far left to take down his content.
Rogan signed a multi-year exclusive contract with Spotify in 2020 estimated at $100 million. This deal also means that Rogan has to follow Spotify's standards and guidelines.
The recent attacks that Rogan has received are for his controversial guests who have discussed “misinformation’’ with Joe on the podcast. This includes his opinions and his guest's opinions on the Covid vaccine, natural immunity, various medications, and more. The claim that Joe Rogan is spreading misinformation may be correct if looking at the way some scientists view specific Covid treatments as objectively right. But opinions on the vaccine, masking, etc. are subjective as they are just opinions; however, opinions can be backed by data and testing. But now the CDC gets to pick what the Covid “science” is. Various mainstream media names have claimed that the CDC’s view on anything Covid related is the only view that should be shown. The white house has said recently that further action should be taken against Rogan by Spotify beyond putting a label on his controversial episodes podcast. Some politicians use standards such as misinformation to attack those who mention alternative views to things like the vaccine or medication. These attacks usually include calls to de-platform the user, through social media, in this case, calls for Joe Rogan to be taken off of Spotify. However, it is not just a battle against dissenting views on Covid that they want to be taken down. The Covid takes are used as an excuse for the real reason they want Rogan de-platformed. Rogan discusses issues in the Biden administration and liberal policy often, making points on air to far more people than CNN can in an entire day. As seen in the chart below.
Rogan clearly has a large influence in the marketplace of ideas and political takes. In the past, Rogan has had names ranging from Bernie Sanders to Ben Shapiro on the show. But it may seem that those days are over of having far left-wingers on the show. For example, after Bernie Sanders went on the Joe Rogan Experience, he was pressured to denounce Rogan for supposedly “racist” “homophobic” and “transphobic” comments in the past.
There are some claims made by mainstream media outlets that are so bogus one must question their motives. An example of this was when CNN and other various news outlets decided to report that Joe Rogan was taking a “horse dewormer” as a medication to treat covid. (It is also important to note that Rogan is not vaccinated against Covid-19 and doesn't plan on getting vaccinated.) This was a referral to Joe's Instagram video where he mentioned he was taking Ivermectin. Ivermectin won a Nobel prize in 2015 for its use in humans. It has been used with animals before including horses and there are different doses of the medication for various purposes. But hundreds of millions of humans have taken Ivermectin. This is an example that those in the mainstream media will find any stretch of the imagination to make their competition lose all credibility. CNN went as far as to put a color filter on a video of Rogan talking about getting covid making him look greyer than the actual video.
Rogan posted another video on Instagram discussing his recent situation saying,” the problem I have with the term misinformation, especially today, is that many of the things we thought of as misinformation just a short while ago are now accepted as fact. Like for instance 8 months ago if you said if your vaccinated you can still catch covid and you can still spread covid, you'd be removed from social media. they would ban you from certain platforms. Now that is accepted as fact. If you said cloth masks don't work, you would be banned from social media. Now that is openly repeated and stated on CNN. If you said Covid-19 came from a lab you'd be banned from many social media platforms. Now that's on the main cover of Newsweek”
This is not a new occurrence. It is extremely common to see these sorts of issues. Another example was the Hunter Biden laptop story before the 2020 election. If you mentioned this story on Twitter users would be suspended until they took down the post. An example of such is when the White House Press Secretary at the time, Kaliegh Mcennany reposted the laptop story. However months later (after the election) the story was openly reported on CNN.
Rogan has also said, “I'm not a doctor. I'm just a person who sits down and talks to people and has conversations with them. Do I get things wrong? Absolutely”. He goes on to mention that he has scientists on the show from opposite sides of the spectrum and that he's interested in telling the truth. He mentions his agreement with the idea of putting a disclaimer on the controversial episodes that says you should talk to your physician before making decisions based on what you hear on the podcast. He also thanked Spotify for being supportive. Rogan said he wasn't mad at Neil Young for taking his music off Spotify over this issue.
Joe Rogan has stood up for free speech throughout his career and does not call for the de-platforming of anyone he disagrees with. Spotify must do the same and stand up against the pressure to take down Rogan. In a free society, there is not one opinion that should be deemed correct, and another to be deemed misinformation. If Rogan gets shut down, so will the average American. Sadly so far, about 100 episodes out of the over 1700 episodes were taken down in the last month after pressure from celebrities. Spotify was once almost seen as a leader in the free speech fight when they signed the already controversial Joe Rogan to the platform. However, they have caved to the pressure recently. As this has happened, Rumble, another social media platform offered Rogan a 100 million dollar deal similar to Spotify’s. However, Rogan turned it down as he believes Spotify will not turn against him; however, it is unclear what Spotify will do in the future.
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