Misinformation knocks on Spotify's door

In May 2020, Spotify made a huge commercial bet: it signed a $100 million contract to have the exclusivity of Joe Rogan's podcast, one of the most listened to in the world. The goal was to bring Rogan and his massive audience to the platform. The unexpected effect was a barrage of criticism for misinformation.

Rogan is a comedian and sports commentator who defines himself as a libertarian and whose positions on issues such as guns or gender identity have raised controversy on more than one occasion. Through the microphones of The Joe Rogan Experience have been present figures such as Elon Musk, Mike Tyson or the physicist Neil deGrasse, as well as actors, singers and writers. However, there has also been room for controversial guests who have made questionable or false statements about covid-19.

For example, in October 2020, Alex Jones, a well-known conspiracy theorist who had been banned from Twitter in the past for breaking harassment policies, used his time on the podcast to say that "many studies show that the faceplate does nothing to protect."

In June of last year, Rogan invited Pierre Kory, a physician who claimed that "ivermectin kills covid and should be the basic treatment for a patient who is not hospitalized" In early 2022, the program was attended by immunologist Robert Malone, who claimed that hospitals had financial incentives to report false deaths from covid.

Such statements have also come from Rogan's voice. In April last year, he argued that if people lived healthy lives, exercised and ate well, they didn't need a vaccine. Given this episode, a Spotify source told The Verge that the company had reviewed the content and did not consider the influential commentator to be encouraging people to avoid vaccination or to be explicitly anti-vaccine. 

While other social media have been criticized for content moderation issues, Spotify is far behind in combating problematic posts on its platform.

Until 2015, Spotify's focus was on music streaming. However, in May of that year it made a determined foray into podcasts. Among other things, this meant that it would have to address questions such as the content of The Joe Rogan Experience. In other words, it would have to have standards for reviewing and controlling the content of this format. A problem that it did not have before on this scale and with which social media have been dealing with for years.

On January 26, singer Neil Young asked his label to remove his songs from Spotify, which he called "the home of deadly misinformation about covid," a reference to Rogan's show. In response, the company issued a statement in which it regretted Young's departure and said it had a great responsibility in balancing the safety of users and the freedom of creators. "We have detailed content policies and since the start of the pandemic we have removed more than 20,000 episodes of covid-related podcasts," the company said. 

The rules Spotify mentions are not published and it is therefore difficult to monitor their actual application. In its terms of service, Spotify states that creators are responsible for the content they upload to the platform, while the company reserves the right to moderate activity as they see fit, with the power to "remove or edit any content for any or no reason." 

Moreover, its community guidelines prohibit offensive, abusive, defamatory, libelous, obscene, illegal or spam content, among other categories that do not include disinformation. 

While other social media have been criticized for content moderation issues, Spotify is far behind in combating problematic posts on its platform. Unlike Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, which have specialized policies for what they do not allow on their platforms, explaining violations and giving examples, Spotify only offers a generic list of banned content, without further details about its scope. 

At the bottom of it all is also the economic interest of Spotify, which for this year planned to demand one million dollars for a basic slot in Rogan's program. The initial investment in the product, let's remember, was $100 million. Withdrawing the content from the platform would be, from this point of view, a shot in the foot.

In more ways than one, content moderation is an economic issue. For the academic Sarah T. Roberts, too lax rules can cause a platform to be filled with unwanted content, which would scare away users and with them advertisers. Similarly, very strict rules would discourage the use of the platform, and with it, the interest of those who want to advertise on it. 

It is possible that this fact marks a new stage and Spotify will have to invest more resources and people in the review of the content it develops and hosts. It is difficult to think that they will be left out of the pressure and questions faced by other platforms and social media. Not to go too far, there were similar questions for Twitter about the lack of moderation of Spaces - the recently launched audio rooms for live broadcasts. 

With new formats, spaces and content, the dilemma of how to moderate and how far to moderate becomes increasingly difficult. For now, Neil Young's songs are still on Spotify. As technology analyst Kara Swisher wrote, while the singer's move can be interpreted as a grand gesture, it won't be enough.