Joe Rogan's controversial anti-vaccine podcast had a huge impact on Spotify, besides being abandoned by users and creators, now its value has plummeted.
Reported by Android Central, Tuesday (1/2/2022), Spotify's valuation fell USD 2.1 billion in just a few days. All because of Joe Rogan's podcast, which was accused of spreading hoaxes related to the COVID-19 vaccine.
Spotify's share value declined 6% in the three days from January 26 to January 28, which came after singer Neil Young removed his song from Spotify. He considers Spotify not doing content moderation properly, which has an impact on the spread of Rogan's podcast.
Not only Young, there is also singer Joni Mitchel who also removed his song from Spotify. Previously, there was an open letter signed by 270 doctors and professors, asking Spotify to better filter the circulating content, so that content like The Joe Rogan Experience doesn't spread again.
Previously, Spotify had actually been hit by various problems. Like the stock at the beginning of January, which has declined. Spotify's stock was already down 25% on January 25, the day before the Joe Rogan issue occurred.
Rogan finally issued an apology via a 10-minute video posted on Instagram. He also apologized to Spotify for this problem.
Spotify then also implemented new rules, in the form of links to Spotify's COVID-19 hub posted on podcast pages discussing COVID-19. This hub contains the latest credible information regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We've actually had a lot of rules (related to this issue) over the years, but to be honest, we're not really transparent about the policies that govern content in general," said Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify in a statement on the Spotify blog.
"Based on the responses that have taken place over the past few weeks, it has now become clear to me that we have an obligation to provide balanced information and access to information that is widely agreed upon by the medical and scientific communities," he added.