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Joe Rogan posted an apology Saturday while Spotify looked as if it would collect eliminated roughly 70 episodes of his podcast as videos of the comedian the utilize of racial slurs in previous shows spread on social media. The events attain amid a musician-led announce of Spotify over allowing Rogan’s podcast to spread COVID-19 misinformation.
Earlier this week, Grammy-successful singer India.Arie, who has pulled her catalog from Spotify, shared a compilation video that shows Rogan uttering a racial slur on various previous episodes of his relate. Posted to Instagram, the musician acknowledged that clips might presumably presumably even be taken out of context but mentioned Rogan mustn’t be the utilize of such slurs below any instances. She also posted a message asserting Rogan became problematic due to of “his language round flee,” as smartly as COVID cloth.
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The podcast host, who in 2020 inked a deal reportedly price extra than $100 million to distribute his relate completely on Spotify, took to Instagram early Saturday to remark regret. “I undoubtedly wasn’t attempting to be racist,” Rogan mentioned, “and I undoubtedly would never are desirous to offend somebody for leisure with one thing as dumb as racism.” Rogan agreed he need to now not utilize such slurs, no topic the context.
The apology came quickly after a fan-made internet location chanced on that roughly 70 episodes of the podcast had been no longer readily accessible on Spotify. The online location, JREMissing, uses Spotify’s API to review readily accessible episodes to a database of all episodes recorded.
Spotify has beforehand excluded episodes of the podcast for violating its enlighten insurance policies. CNET couldn’t verify a hyperlink between the currently circulating videos and the disappearance of the episodes. Neither Spotify nor Rogan spoke back to requests for observation.
In his apology video, Rogan says that he deleted one particular podcast episode over what he known as an idiotic and racist observation he’d clumsily made. On Saturday, Bloomberg cited an anonymous source in reporting that Spotify took down dozens of episodes of the podcast after Rogan made the choice following a dialog with the corporate.
The new round of controversy comes amid ongoing topic that Rogan’s podcast serves as a platform for COVID misinformation. Rocker Neil Younger and folk icon Joni Mitchell pulled their song from Spotify after an commence letter signed by extra than 250 clinical mavens, researchers and professors pointed to the podcast as evidence the streaming service became assisting within the promotion of misinformation.
CEO Daniel Ek has defended the inclusion of Rogan on the corporate’s roster and informed a company city corridor that the podcast became principal to Spotify’s success.
“If we decide even a shot at reaching our fearless ambitions, this will doubtless presumably perchance mean having enlighten on Spotify that various us might presumably presumably also merely now not be proud to be related with,” Ek mentioned one day of the town corridor. “No longer anything goes, but there can be opinions, suggestions and beliefs that we disagree with strongly and even makes us offended or sad.”
