Rogan versus Young. Curation, censorship and civic responsibility online
Nothing turns me on more than an ethical grey area...
Hello!
I’m writing to you this week from my local Irish pub because any work that requires me to read, watch and listen to Joe Rogan deserves to be done so over a stiff drink.
I understand that perhaps dropping the J-word this early in the project might be considered controversial — and I doubt it will be the very last time we utter his name — but alas, in the spirit of keeping things as topical and relevant as possible, I wanted to highlight the great injustice that I now face as a Spotify user: the fact that the only way I can listen to Neil Young’s music is on the Eat, Pray Love (2010) movie soundtrack. Thank you, Joe Rogan. Really.
But this story runs a little deeper than Rogan vs. Neil which is a face-off that holds the same kind of energy in my subconscious as the Peterson vs. Žižek debate in Toronto (2019). It’s about the ethics of using digital products, curatorship and censorship. There’s nothing that turns an anthropologist on more than a good grey area, so let’s dive in deep.
I hope you enjoy this edition of No Filters and it makes you consider the ethics behind the roles digital products have in your life. Remember to share it with your friends, close boomer rellies, and on your social media profiles. If you haven’t subscribed yet, you can do so here.
See you next Sunday,
Caro
Ps. Cover art this week is from this source.
They can have Rogan or Young, not both
In case you’ve been living under a rock, this week Neil Young announced that it was either him or Rogan in spectacular and relevant fashion: on his website which looks like it hasn’t been updated since 2003.
I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines – potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them. Please act on this immediately today and keep me informed of the time schedule.
In a result that was literally a surprise to no one, Spotify was like, ‘Ok Boomer’ and deleted Neil Young’s music from the service. Twitter erupted to a chorus of people either clueless as to who Young is, and Rogan bros shouting censorship and cancellation into the digital void. And yes, I hate the world we live in, thanks for asking.
This is where I honestly thought the story would end because as much as I detest Rogan and every second of my life I have unfortunately spent listening to him in the name of research, late-stage capitalism has taught me that backing some white cishet man you’ve sunk a 100 million dollar publishing deal into is a no-brainer good business decision.
However, shortly after, our darling Jodi Mitchell announced that she too would be pulling her music in solidarity with Young. Megan Markle and Harry (Don’t you think it’s kinda weird that no one actually refers to Harry’s last name?) followed suit, publicly expressing concerns over Spotify’s discrete content policies despite only releasing one podcast ever under their production company. Brené Brown, who has two Spotify exclusive podcasts, paused her editorial calendar while she sought answers, Roxane Gay pulled her podcast and entire archive off Spotify, and some guitarist who played for someone relatively famous also removed their music even though literally nobody cares.
But, it seemed that the share market cared, with Spotify’s market capitalisation falling $2.1 billion over a three-day span this week.
And, for a moment no matter how fleeting, perhaps this story did have legs. Granted, probably not very strong legs... but I digress.
Your ears are valuable
Spotify gained its popularity because it eliminated the traditional paywalls between eager listeners and unlimited music consumption. I started using Spotify in 2013 when I was a student surviving off government payouts and the one shift a week I would work at a fast-fashion store. I grew up in the era of Limewire, torrenting and the humble CD. On days after school, I would take myself to the library to study and rip music off CDs to load into my iTunes library and purple iPod nano.
I certainly didn’t have the money to spend $20 on an LP every week, nor did I have access to a VISA that would allow me to purchase songs for $1.49AUD a pop on the iTunes store. Spotify allowed me to bypass the hassle of potentially installing another piece of malware on my computer by listening to a few ads every 30 minutes. Easy. Also, the dark interface at the time was tres chic at the time.
The business model is predicated on the listener eventually getting bored of ads and purchasing a subscription. In fact, according to Investopedia, 91% of Spotify’s financials come from their premium service, not their ad-supported option. What becomes apparent from this, is that paying subscribers equals value, and with an estimated 11 million listeners per episode (sometimes spanning 3+ hours multiple times per week), Joe Rogan sure brings a lot of subscribers to the table.
Young’s ‘him or me’ proposition seemed to rest on the idea that an influential swathe of people would rather unsubscribe from Spotify’s service than have access to a catalogue that doesn’t feature his music. But, when we compare Young’s 6.1 million monthly listeners to the likes of The Weekend (86.3 million), Justin Bieber (81.2 million), Ed Sheeran (78 million), Dua Lipa (69.2 million) and Adele (60.4 million), we can clearly see that this was a popularity contest Young wasn’t even nominated to run in. Awkward for him.
Theoretically speaking, if any or all of the artists listed above chose to leave Spotify, then maybe we’d have some actual solid bones to this story. Alas, as it stands, Spotify technically loses money every time someone feels nostalgic and streams Heart of Gold and the rest of us who are simps to the top 40, or listen to Joe Rogan’s podcast pay for it with our ears.
Or, in a Twitter-friendly word count summary: Joe Rogan listeners are fiscally more valuable to Spotify both in the amount of time they spend using the service, and the content they are likely to consume.
“Learning, growing and evolving”
Spotify isn’t without its own fair share of ethical controversies in the past. Let’s not forget that Taylor Swift removed her catalogue from Spotify in 2014 over the remuneration of artists on the platform. How did Spotify respond? With a social media campaign... yes really.
Spotify responded to the criticism this week by making its misinformation policies public for the first time. Daniel Ek, the CEO of the company and who frankly looks like someone who would enjoy Joe Rogan’s content, wrote a blog response to Young. Very 21st century Jane Austen of them both.
We created Spotify to enable the work of creators around the world to be heard and enjoyed by listeners around the world... In that role, it is important to me that we don’t take on the position of being content censor while also making sure that there are rules in place and consequences for those who violate them... That doesn’t mean that we always get it right, but we are committed to learning, growing and evolving.
The last line is something that would have gotten me a high distinction in my PR classes back in 2013.
The key takeaway from this is that they’re adding a content advisory to any podcast episode that includes COVID-19 discussions, like what we have all been subjected to on Facebook and IG for some time now.
Rogan responded by making a ten-minute video addressing misinformation concerns.
I don’t know because I’m not a doctor. I’m not a scientist. I’m just a person who sits down and talks to people and has conversations with them. Do I get things wrong? Absolutely. I get things wrong, but I try to correct them whenever I get something wrong. I try to correct it because I’m interested in telling the truth. I’m interested in finding out what the truth is, and I’m interested in having interesting conversations with people that have differing opinions. I’m not interested in only talking to people that have one perspective.
Just like how you recently tried to correct Jordan Peterson for clearly stating that Climate Change was fiction on your podcast, Joe?
Allegedly, Spotify had its employees vet every single one of Rogan’s podcasts to ensure it met its misinformation guidelines. I would rather let Scott Morrison wash my hair in a salon than get paid to do such a thing. Some labour just isn’t worth it. No podcasts were removed, by the way.
Curated Censorship
Some creators were happy with Spotify’s response. Brené Brown who, as a fellow academic, I am obviously an avid stan for, announced on Instagram that she would be resuming her editorial calendar and continuing conversations with Spotify execs.
Our collective well-being is best served when we approach debates and discourse with curiosity, critical thinking and a healthy scepticism of false dichotomies
On one hand, I love Brown’s response to this issue, because there’s nothing that I enjoy more than being a curious bitch. After all, that’s why this newsletter exists. However, I am sceptical of this because I am entirely pessimistic about the general public’s ability to have a critical conversation about any topic, let alone this specific one.
People want to be told what to think, not follow their curiosity down the yellow brick road down to the existential cesspool only to be confronted that our entire society is built upon myths that we tell ourselves — too dark?
This is why notions of filter bubbles are seeping into every conversation, and why they are so concerning. If people were really open to critical discussion, they would be deliberately seeking views outside of what they passively consume every day, myself included. Sure, we can blame the algorithm, but we have agency in this, and we choose not to take action. Joe Rogan also has agency in choosing who he talks to on the podcast, let’s not forget that.
In an article published in the New York Times this week, Roxane Gay discusses what she identifies as the difference between censorship and curation.
I would never support censorship. And because I am a writer, I know that language matters. There’s a difference between censorship and curation. When we are not free to express ourselves, when we can be thrown in jail or even lose our lives for speaking freely, that is censorship. When we say, as a society, that bigotry and misinformation are unacceptable, and that people who espouse those ideas don’t deserve access to significant platforms, that’s curation. We are expressing our taste and moral discernment, and saying what we find acceptable and what we do not.
A note that Gay touches on that really resonated with me, is how difficult it is to navigate the ethics and integrity in choosing both where your content is published, and where people can consume your content. No platform or business is devoid of ethical controversies, and unless you’re willing to go independent, you might have very little say in where or how your art is consumed. Sure, Neil might have removed his music from Spotify but he is now actively promoting his work on Amazon. Go figure.
The truth is that we are already living in a curated and censored world, and it kinda goes without saying that there are very real and extremely valid reasons to make unfettered access to these things more difficult. What I find most frustrating about Brené Brown’s response is that it insinuates that information isn’t already subject to a form of an appraisal. I am left with questions about where the line in the sand is between curation, censorship, and civic responsibility, and who is responsible for their enforcement and discretion.
Some of these policies, like in the case of Spotify, are created and enforced by groups of people in shiny office buildings wearing black suits. Some are designated by politicians and are subject to law, and some are self-regulated and driven, proactively placed ahead of content by those who create it. In the context of the issue at hand, is it Spotify or Rogan who should be leading the way? And, if people are unable or uninterested in Brown’s notions of curious and critical discourse, are the content warnings Spotify intends to use a reasonable alternative? Regardless, there will be people who think content warnings go too far, and others who don’t think they go far enough. I personally refuse to believe that a business will ever prioritise the type of curatorship Gay describes when their sole business purpose is to make a profit. They can spin and shout all the PR buzz words they want, but I will remain unconvinced unless there is action.
Is it possible to have an impact?
I would like to end with a quote from Roxane Gay.
I am not looking for purity; it doesn’t exist. Instead, I’m trying to do the best I can, and take a stand when I think I can have an impact.
As consumers of music and podcasts, should we be doing anything about this, and can we actually have an impact?
I think what excites me most about ethics is that they are highly personalised and subjective based on your life experiences. How I feel about the issue at hand might wildly contradict your own feelings, and both are valid. People power is everything to me, and I refuse to believe in a world where there is no point in trying to change our behaviour and consumption habits purely because an idea feels too abstract or bigger than us. This is how I feel about capitalism 99% of the time, by the way.
So if you’re reading this and thinking that perhaps you’d like to do something, this is where I’d start: choose to end your subscription with Spotify. As we discussed earlier, paid subscribers contribute to 90% of the company’s revenue. Hit them where it hurts the most for these dirty capitalists, their profit margin.
While people aren’t exactly leaving in droves, and it’s unlikely the platform will drop Rogan, your ego can rest easy at night knowing that you no longer financially support a company that hides behind the phrase we are committed to learning, growing and evolving, which is essentially the business equivalent to live, laugh, love.
Your popular options include Apple Music, Amazon, Youtube Music (apparently this is a thing), and TIDAL. I’ll leave it up to you to do the research into these companies and how they prioritise content, artists and the like. You can still access any Spotify exclusive content you might miss, by the way, I did the leg work there for you. But you will be subjected to ads. Think of it as a nostalgic trip back to the early twenty-teens.
I will probably move away from Spotify, and surprisingly it’s not because seeing The Rogan Experience on my homepage every day makes me insatiably angry, but rather because in researching all of this, I came to the realisation that I treat my digital subscriptions in the same way I treat my bank or retirement fund; utterly complacent and unlikely to change because it’s inconvenient. While I do think it is unrealistic for us to uphold a level of ethics we are comfortable with in every single facet of life, challenging notions of convenient consumer behaviour is something I am working on right now.
I challenge those of you who have read this far to consider the roles of your streaming services, music or otherwise, in your lives. How do you interact with them? Why do you have them? What value do they bring to you? How does the subscription model compare to physically owning copies of your favourite albums? Consider what changes you might make, and where your own ethics lie in this broader conversation.
Maybe you’ll decide to go back to physically owning your music — the ultimate curator! In which case I say, I own Comes a Time by Neil Young on vinyl and I will happily take offers at this point in time.
Thanks for reading this week and I hope you learned something new. If you have more to add to the topic at hand, please do leave a comment! Constructive debates, criticism and discussions are valued here. Got a tip about something I should explore? DM me on IG @c____west.
Next week we’re going to be talking about dating apps and how they’re a little fucked up. Consider it my Carrie Bradshaw manifesto. I’ve already written this piece, so it will come to your inbox on time, I promise!