Podcaster and comedian Joe Rogan has responded to theories that his podcast is being censored by Spotify, saying that he has not been contacted by the platform at all regarding the matter.
At nearly 10 million YouTube subscribers, Joe Rogan stands as one of the most influential podcast creators on the platform, and has hosted a variety of huge guests including Elon Musk and Miley Cyrus.
As a result of his immense success, Rogan announced in May 2020 that he also signed an exclusive deal with streaming service Spotify that will mean his podcasts will no longer be available in full on YouTube from the end of the year.
Speaking on the topic, he said that the JRE podcast would “remain FREE, and it will be the exact same show. It’s just a licensing deal,” – also stressing that “Spotify won’t have any creative control over the show.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/CAYSqQLFP_l/?utm_source=ig_embed
However, when the Joe Rogan library went live on Spotify for the first time on September 1, eagle eyed viewers spotted that there were several episodes missing.
Due to the controversial and often far-right personalities that appeared in the missing episodes, many suspected that Spotify was censoring the podcast, and was not under Joe’s control as previously assumed.
However in episode 1544 of his podcast, he strongly disagreed with claims that Spotify was censoring him, saying “they have literally said nothing to me about it. Zero. It’s never come up.”
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“Now, is there someone at Spotify complaining about the Abigail Shrier episode? I’m sure.” He continued by saying “me on the outside reading these f**king articles, ‘oh my God, Spotify’s censoring Rogan, Spotify’s doing this!’ Spotify has said nothing.”
Topic starts at 1:02:10 and 1:09:20
https://youtu.be/ikJq6wcgrXI?t=3730
“Listen to me. Nothing. They haven’t said anything to my manager, they haven’t said anything to me, they’ve said nothing.”
Rogan mentioned that apparently Spotify has “had meetings”, but also stresses that “they have a lot of meetings. They have meetings about all sorts of shows.”
He said Spotify is “a great company, they’re open minded, they treat their employees very well,” and again made sure his viewers know that “in terms of then silencing me, zero. There’s been nothing.”
There’s certainly a big transition in place for the Joe Rogan Experience amid the shift over to Spotify, but it seems that this is one rumor that he wants to shut down as early as possible.
