Neil Young takes on Spotify over Covid-19 misinformation
Connected Consumers #20. Your regular round up of digital consumer news.
Neil Young and the head of the World Health Organisation formed an unlikely collab this week against the Covid-19 ‘infodemic’. WHO’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus backed Neil Young after the musician’s open letter to Spotify asked them to choose between having Joe Rogan’s podcast and Young’s own music on the platform.
“They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.”
Rogan has been criticised for spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation around Covid-19 and vaccinations. He is well known for having guests on the show who are banned from other platforms for violating their content rules.
Young’s open letter follows one from currently co-signed by over 1000 medical professionals which cited an episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast as an example of how:
Spotify is enabling its hosted media to damage public trust in scientific research and sow doubt in the credibility of data-driven guidance offered by medical professionals.
For now Rogan gets to stay. He averages about 11 million listeners per episode, making it one of the most listened-to podcasts in the world. When I last checked Young’s page he was getting about 6 million monthly listeners, although he will have had many times that over the years.
But it’s these sheer numbers that are causing concern, particularly to Young who feels that making the Joe Rogan Experience available on Spotify gives it credibility as users would assume that the platform would “never present grossly unfactual information”.
Spotify say they don’t bear editorial responsibility for Joe Rogan, but their content policy history is interesting. In 2018 they backtracked on their policy to remove artists on the basis of ‘hateful conduct’ after artists’ fears that any allegation could be used to remove their music. They did however keep the policy that prohibits ‘hate content’ i.e that which “expressly and principally promotes, advocates, or incites hatred or violence against a group or individual”.
But their position on Covid-19 misinformation is not entirely clear. The open letter from health and medical professionals pointed out the lack of official Covid-19 misinformation policies (which places like YouTube, Facebook and Instagram have introduced). However last year, an Australian celebrity chef was barred from the site for breaching its rules, and in response to Young’s actions, Spotify stated “we have detailed content policies in place and we’ve removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to Covid since the start of the pandemic.” Those policies are not visible in their user guidelines nor is anything more general on misinformation.
Whether you agree with their editorial take on podcast content or not, they are using the defence of ‘we’re only the tubes’ that other platforms have made for years. But the environment has shifted, the pandemic has finally driven a much wider acceptance of the role and impact of online misinformation and the need for joint action to tackle it at the platform level. In contrast, Spotify, without even a misinformation policy available look underprepared (to put it mildly).
Spotify is now left with a formidable critic in Young, as well as having to publicly get to grips with the societal and health impacts that can arise when pursuing a growth strategy based on capturing the attention of more and more consumers with a much bigger range of content.
Short takes:
Rival e-scooter firms come together to create a universal warning sound: e-scooters’ quiet swish along the pavement means less noise pollution but is risky for pedestrians with limited vision. UK researchers are working to create a warning sound that is distinctive and audible enough to alert those with sight loss, but doesn’t impact negatively on those with hearing loss or neurodiverse conditions. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/headlines/2022/jan/e-scooter-firms-develop-universal-warning-sound-after-collisions
Slithers of internet access: coin-operated vending machines in Manila sell internet access five minutes at a time in rural and low income areas where monthly upfront payments are unaffordable. https://restofworld.org/2022/philippines-pisonet-internet-access
Objecting to automated decisions made easier: objecting to the unfair or downright puzzling decisions a machine makes about you is difficult. Even if you can find out who to complain to about an automated decision on insurance or credit, companies can be non-responsive. German Consumer Association VZBV is offering a new ‘objection management’ service called Unding, developed by AlgorithmWatch that deals with inquiries about or objections to unfair or confusing automated decisions. A great example of how automated tech services can help consumers with automated tech problems. https://unding.de/
Humans are verbally abusing their AI chatbots A disturbing report on an apparent trend for creating AI-girlfriends and then subjecting them to extreme verbal abuse, and telling their mates. I haven’t quite worked out what this says about humankind, but it doesn’t feel pretty. https://futurism.com/chatbot-abuse