https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship
The difference is that law generally allows private censorship but doesn't generally allow public censorship.
The simple truth of the matter is that Joe Rogan has a tendency for stating falsehoods on his show, and this in turn can result in harm to Spotify's users. For instance, Joe Rogan literally just spread a bunch of misinformation about the wildfires (https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/18/media/joe-rogan-apologizes/in...) while broadcasting on Spotify. He clearly needs some help fact checking and editing his shows so that they can provide more truthful information.
Why shouldn't the New York Times fire or disciple a columnist with the exact same factual track record as Joe Rogan?
> For instance, Joe Rogan literally just spread a bunch of misinformation about the wildfires (https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/18/media/joe-rogan-apologizes/in...).
Funny how you linked cnn, a major source of misinformation itself.
> Why shouldn't the New York Times fire or disciple a columnist with the exact same factual track record as Joe Rogan?
Is Joe Rogan an employee of Spotify? I don't think he works for spotify. So your example doesn't work.
Lets play a game, between the jre, cnn and nytimes, who pushes the least amount of misinformation? If you are honest, the answer is the jre. Between the jre, cnn and the nytimes, who pushes the least amount of misinformation to start wars and kill countless innocent people. The answer is the jre once again.
"Disinformation", "misinformation" and other propaganda terms are so readily adopted by fans of misinformation/disinformation.
As a second point, Joe Rogan is now effectively an employee (or contractor if you prefer) of Spotify. Spotify is paying him a lot of money to run his show on the Spotify platform.
Informative isn't the same thing as factual. And you have to be an absolute moron to take anything John Oliver says seriously. But I don't think HBO should ban him. Funny how nobody is demanding John Oliver to be banned and yet, he involves himself in american politics and he's from britain. But even still, I don't think he should be banned.
> As a second point, Joe Rogan is now effectively an employee (or contractor if you prefer) of Spotify. Spotify is paying him a lot of money to run his show on the Spotify platform.
Spotify is selling a product ( JRE ) on their platform. Doesn't make the product an employee of spotify. But maybe I'm wrong. But that makes it even worse since spotify employees are threatening a fellow employee.
You have crafted a new reality to justify your position and that’s exactly what Joe Rogan did when he falsely accused leftists of starting those fires.
Well I guess I'm a moron. I thought his show on the Uighurs in China was pretty informative.
> Funny how nobody is demanding John Oliver to be banned and yet, he involves himself in american politics and he's from britain.
John Oliver is an American citizen that lives in America. Who cares where he was born?
Some people do, obviously. In this case, it's a bit on the nose...
In that sense Spotify doesn't need to ensure its 'product' provides truthful information.
It's on society to not treat entertainment as News. Unfortunately, people going to JRE for news isn't Spotify or JRE's fault. It's a cultural problem and you need to solve it at a structural or cultural level.
At a certain point, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, it's fair to call it a duck. And the JRE certainly tries to present itself as factual and not a complete parody.
I am having trouble imagining a conversation between two people that wouldn’t be considered a news program by your standards. I guess something completely made up like a DnD session?
How boring the world would be if all entertainment was just someone dictating facts about things in a monotone voice that appealed to everyone.
[1] https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/alex-joness-attorneys-...
[2] https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/court-upholds-alex...
If we establish, that a statement is "really true" only if a celestial being, aware of all the facts, would consider this statement true, then pretty much all statements in the world have an unknown for their truth value. The error also can't be established. What people thought "really true" a hundred years ago, we now laugh about. Same will happen to many other things.
Censorship of "falsehoods" is a very dangerous concept. It prevents innovation. Einstein was essentially a heretic. His theories were bold and completely absurd to most people back then. Should we have censored them?
However, for many many statements, a lack of evidence has no impact on the truthfulness. Just because I can't prove something, doesn't make it false. Just because there is a mountain of counter-evidence, doesn't make a statement false, it just makes it less likely to be "really true". However, there could be a surprising piece of evidence, that trumps (pun intended) all existing counter-evidence.
If you want to censor, then you essentially force society into coherence. That is good in the short-term, as it reduces conflict, but very very bad in the long-term, as it suppresses non-standard opinions (i.e. innovation and free expression).
A much better approach than censorship is to create a channel "What Joe Rogan Got Wrong" and list all his supposedly falsehoods and explain the mountain of evidence against it. That of course takes effort. But yeah, the quick solution is rarely the best.
Edit: Due to some confusion in the comments. I just want to clarify some of the terminology here. When I say that science is "censored" I mean it is "censored" in the same way that Spotify is "censoring" Joe Rogan. Nobody is stopping any scientist from posting their papers anywhere they want online and there is nobody stopping Joe Rogan from taking his show and broadcasting it elsewhere. They are only being "censored" in the sense that the mainstream publishers have high truth quality standards and some shows (and scientific papers) don't meet those standards and thus publishers will refuse to publish the low quality material.
Science isn't censored. It's the opposite. It is open and it is tested. You are allowed to claim/hypothesize whatever you want. And you and others are allowed to test it.
There was a time when science was censored. Such as when people started to hypothesize that the earth revolved around the sun. Or when germany started censoring "jewish science".
You are misattributing "testing one's claims" with censoring one's claims. Science doesn't censor.
However, nothing prevents you from publishing your idea on the web, and people have done that and succeeded. There were some brilliant ideas (missing the link) that just got thrown out in the wild. But if the idea is truly brilliant, some other scientist will notice and make sure it gets reviewed anyhow.
The "censorship" (I wouldn't call it that) in science doesnt happen at the publishing stage. When you have a great idea, it is bound to succeed, because nobody can afford to ignore you. The problem is getting there. How do you get the idea? Funding... Science funding is utterly broken. I.e. people research the wrong things for the wrong reasons all the time. This needs to be fixed, however it has nothing to do with censorship. This is just bias.
Spotify is not a scientific journal. It's purpose is not to decide the truthfulness of its content. It should not publish content that breaks a law. If no law is broken, Spotify has neither an obligation, nor should they intervene/censor the content.
Joe Rogan is free to put together his own site with anything he feels like posting. If instead Joe Rogan wants to use someone else's site to make available his musings then he still has to deal with the owner of that site.
It's like buying a house vs booking a hotel: you might feel more comfortable in the hotel but even if you're a paying customer you need to abide by the service provider's rules.
That's within their right of free speech, and Joe Rogan has equal free speech rights to make counter-demands. You believe in free speech don't you?
I'm saying their ideology is unacceptable (anyone calling for censorship should be shunned), not the fact they're speaking their mind.
It should be noted that union organizing activities are protected in the US from employer retaliation.
When I read Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, I don't think I understood how broadly applicable it would be. His follow-up, with Greg Lukianoff, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, is also applicable to the censorship movements afoot in many companies (including publishing companies).