Decided to not renew my Spotify subscription. I know it doesn't matter but I think this is despicable. Facilitating someone who calls kids who were the victim of a mass shooting crisis actors and rants about the 'Jewish Mafia' and accuses Bill Gates of making people sick with vaccines during a pandemic, this isn't 'diversity of opinion'. It's just greed for clicks.
Spotify isn’t the government. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean that anyone has to amplify that speech and broadcast it.
EDIT: Replying to child comments: The First Amendment only applies to the government; full stop. If a bakery can refuse service to a gay couple, and a restaurant can remove you for not following dress code, any private business can refuse you service. Period. You have freedom of speech and they have freedom of association. Those are both First Amendment rights. The right to refuse business is right there next to the right to spout off at the mouth.
Does that standard also apply to services like, for example, GitHub? Do you think that we shouldn't ever question if Microsoft would start kicking off open source projects for arbitrary reasons?
Is Github owned and operated by a state or federal government agency? No? Then yes it probably applies. No person or business has to serve you, or buy from you, or employ you, or let you share their platform. It's their resources and therefor their choice to do so. If it were otherwise people might have recourse when Google shuts them out unilaterally, or when Paypal closes account for vague ToS violations.
Those freedoms enabled the best and worst behavior and let people make of it as they will. Laws usually concern themselves with the ways people abuse others: fraud, various kinds of violence, theft, breach of contract, etc. Regulations exist for industries where the risk of damage to many people exists: chemical waste disposal, lending laws, food labeling laws. If the industry needs regulation then that's what we should push for. My interpretation has always been that the constitution establishes what basic expectations of freedoms and restrictions we should have, and laws set the boundaries on where my freedom ends and yours begins.
It also doesn't mean that we all have to refuse him the platform to be an asshole.
Giving him the platform seems like exactly what Spotify wants to do, and since we all reached the consensus that private corporations are free to do whatever they want with their platforms, I don't understand what the issue is.
Either that or we could just stop being dishonest and admit that we just want to censor people we don't agree with.
Spotify can do what it wishes, and grandparent poster has said s/he disagrees with Spotify and doesn't wish to contribute to their profits while they're doing something s/he disagrees with. So, isn't that all good and dandy?
And if people start a campaign to tell people to "Delete Spotify", that seems to be in the realm of acceptability too? Just like people are saying "Delete Uber" because they're taking money from that Saudi "Journalist Chopper" Prince.
If the campaign is to get the government to create a law to muzzle Spotify, then there is an issue...
You would have liked the interview. Most of it was Rogan stopping Alex and getting Jamie to fact check things before Jones could move into the next topic.
Aren't there mass murderers who give interviews and rapists who receive paychecks from true crime documentaries, and all manner of violent and crazy people being invited to radio talk shows, and still of course a great part of modern music being about raping, illegal drugs and murder.
Why would you expect Spotify to be this child-safe website?
I haven't seen a true crime show yet that gives murderers a platform to advocate for murder, that's not the context those shows operate in, the same goes for art.
But the families of the Sandy Hook children faced harassment after Jones spewed his crap, and his talk against vaccines and masks on Rogan, who has 190 million downloads per month, is going to make misinformation worse, make public health worse, and cost lives. This is not a joke or some bad rap lyrics. These conspiracies threaten people's safety from the virus and from him riling up extremists. I'm not paying a company that enables this.
Where do you draw the line? What about music that encourages misogyny, prostitution and violence? Should this also be banned from Spotify? Or is that ok? Who decides?
"However, we do not tolerate hate content on Spotify – content that expressly and principally promotes, advocates, or incites hatred or violence against a group or individual based on characteristics, including, race, religion, gender identity, sex, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, veteran status, or disability."
Given that Jones own InfoWars podcast is already banned on the platform, I think where the line is, is pretty clear.
A person is not content. Alex Jones is not InfoWars podcast. I haven't listened to the podcast in question, because why would I, but if you think that it does violate these rules, you should prove it.
I don't even live in North America and even i've cancelled my long-standing Spotify family subscription over this. I came to Spotify for the music, not right-wing podcasts.
