Society in the West in contrast to... what exactly? Are you under the impression non-Western societies don't shape culture based on norms and expectations about what's proper or right? How is Spotify deleting episodes from their own platform tyranny? Jesus people have become so dramatic and whiny. Here's a crazy idea, if you don't want your episodes deleted don't sell rights to your intellectual property for 100 million bucks to another party
It is especially weird considering this was basically a foregone conclusion the moment Rogan signed with Spotify. Take a look at the HN comments when the news broke[1].
Spotify has a policy that says they won't host certain content. Rogan and his guests have a history of saying things that don't fit that content policy. It didn't take a genius to see those two things were incompatible. I'm not sure there is any convincing argument that Rogan is being mistreated for walking right into this easily predictable situation.
Citation needed
This is Spotify's content policy:
https://support.spotifyforpodcasters.com/hc/en-us/articles/3...
Assuming we're not talking about infringing or illegal content, we're left to conclude that Rogan "promotes, advocates, or incites hatred or violence against a group or individual based on characteristics, including, race, religion, gender identity, sex, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, veteran status, or disability."
Note, that does not mean "has an un-PC take on something", it very specifically says promotes, advocates or incites hatred or violence. Where and when has Rogan ever done that?
If pointing out simple biological realities like "the bodies of people who go through puberty as a male have more muscle mass than the bodies of people who go through puberty as a female" constitutes "promoting hate" then the concept has no meaning. If a phrase is "impossible to define" perhaps it is not a good basis on which to form a policy.
The clip you posted was about weightlifting. If a biological man can call himself a woman and compete in women's weightlifting, why don't we just get rid of the gender categories altogether and have men and women compete together? If we did that, do you think any woman, trans or cis, would ever win a title again?
Regardless, reasonable people can disagree about these things. Back to the original question: in what conceivable way does any of this constitute promoting hatred or violence? Rogan said that people who are biologically male should compete with other people who are also biologically male, I don't see where he said we should beat them up or kill them or anything like that? So we are not allowed to have differences of opinion about which competitions people should compete in?
>Rogan didn't even say trans women shouldn't compete
This is what Rogan said (rough transcript):
>[When you let a trans women competing against cisgender women] you are stealing from [cisgender] women, you are stealing victory, you are cheating, you are fucking 100% cheating, and anybody who says they are not is an asshole.
You are misrepresenting Rogan's point to make it sound more acceptable. He is not speaking specifically about MMA. He is not talking about other competitors having a choice. He is just straight saying that a trans woman is cheating by competing against cis women.
^ What’s wrong with that statement? It’s a crude way to phrase things, but it’s true. Saying trans women have a biologic advantage when competing against cis women is not transphobic.
I never said it was transphobic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQTfyjhvfH8&t=4210s
This is where he's talking about MMA. There were other occasions where he mentioned disclosing it. I don't remember the exact episode and timestamp.
But like I said above (sorry, edited as I thought more). What does any of this have to do with promoting hate or violence? Does thinking people should compete in this or that competition somehow mean you hate them?
I never said it did constitute everything he has ever said on the topic. However that isn't the point. Not every episode is being removed. Only some of them are. He can be accepting of trans people on 99 episodes and it doesn't undo being transphobic on the 100th. It is also possible his opinions have evolved over time, but we aren't judging his current opinion. All that maters is what was said on the specific episodes being removed.
>What does any of this have to do with promoting hate or violence? Does thinking people should compete in this or that competition somehow mean you hate them?
You are the one who brought sports into this. I simply stated he has been repeatedly accused of transphobia. His opinion on sports is part of that, but it isn't the only time he has been called transphobic.
Ok, then find a clip where he promotes violence against trans people or any other group or tells people to hate them. The burden of proof is on people making the claim to provide evidence that supports it, not the other way around.
Edit:
To get back to the fundamental question here. The issue is, Spotify has a policy. Does Rogan violate the policy or not? By your own description, the policy hinges on terms that are "impossible to define". So, is a policy with undefinable terms a good policy? Is there any objective way to determine whether it was violated or not and apply it fairly and consistently to everyone? If not, why are we holding up the policy as a gold standard and using it as a justification for censorship when it is impossible to determine whether or not it was violated?
I didn't accuse him of transphobia. I said he can't go a few months without new accusations of transphobia. That is just a fact. If you want, you can go through those Google results from a few comments back and try to refute those accusations. I don't care enough about Joe Rogan to try to prove anything about him.
I never said Spotify's policy was "a gold standard" or even "good policy". I'm not defending their actions in removing specific episodes. I have no idea why those specific episodes were removed. I simply started with a comment that this was an obvious eventuality due to Spotify's policy and what Rogan says (it is a simple fact that he is often accused of spreading hate speech, whether what he says is actually hate speech is almost irrelevant because the accusations alone are enough to know that he would eventually be perceived to have violated the policy).
"I didn't accuse him of being a Kenyan. I said he can't go a few months without new accusations of being a Kenyan. That is just a fact. If you want, you can go through those Google results from a few comments back and try to refute those accusations. I don't care enough about Barack Obama to try to prove anything about him."
1. This was an "obvious eventuality"
2. This does not constitute mistreatment of Rogan by Spotify.
First, many of the episodes such as the Milo Yiannopoulos one predate the Spotify deal. Spotify knew what they were buying and should have said at the time what they were and were not willing to host. Only Spotify and and Rogan know for sure the details of what was in their contract, but from what Rogan has said on the show, they had agreed that Spotify would have no creative control and they would host the whole catalog. I doubt very, very much that anyone would engage in a 9-figure contract without spelling out these details. If Spotify has decided to renege on what they agreed to, I think that makes it both non-obvious that that would happen and mistreatment (they are not honoring the contract).
Whenever these controversies arise, if Rogan mentions them on the show at all he says that nobody from Spotify says anything to him about them and he gets no feedback from them at all about the content, since they aren't supposed to have any creative control over the show. Maybe he's lying, but if not, I think that would also be non-obvious and mistreatment if Spotify is telling Rogan there's no problem and then taking content down behind his back.
And just...I don't understand this attitude. "Well of course people will make baseless accusations, and you'll be punished because of them without anyone trying to figure out the facts! You know this will happen, so it's not a problem!" Like....yes, that's a problem.
"Of course you get sent to the gulag if someone accuses you of criticizing Stalin. You know it doesn't matter if it's true or not! You know all this, so it's not mistreatment! It's just an obvious eventuality!"
Edit: I say people, but realistically no human could exist with such flagrant disregard for logic and reasonable discourse.
Do you truly believe that this person would have no advantage competing against cisgender woman? I think most people would be able to see the obvious advantage Janae gained from formerly being a male.
The truth is that trans women have been allowed to compete on the collegiate and international stages for almost two decades at this point. Where are all the transgender athletes dominating competition. Why doesn't Janae Kroc have a Olympic gold medal? This fear is mostly unfounded.
EDIT: I did a little more research after posting and I will refer you to the words of Kroc herself[1]:
> And yes as hard as it is to believe for some people one year is a sufficient amount of time for HRT to completely eliminate any advantage that person had and there is significant evidence to back this up. This is also why even though trans women have been able to compete in the Olympics since Athens in 2004 we have not had one single trans woman medal at the Olympics...
>As far as going forward is concerned it's all about education. This is so much misinformation out there and so many people talking about how transwomen will dominate all women's sports and yet that has never happened. It's very similar to the threat of transwomen in bathrooms concerning child safety. No recorded incidents ever but it was used as a scare tactic to enact laws.
[1] - https://old.reddit.com/r/powerlifting/comments/75rd7q/janae_...
So, to answer your question, the reason Janae does not hold a gold medal in women's weightlifting, is that she never competed as a woman.
It is not really comparable to an average, non-professional athlete competing against a professional athlete. A fair comparison would be Lebron James competing against Breanna Stewart (WNBA Finals MVP) or the LA Lakers competing against the Houston Comets.
And hey, that might be interesting! But it's not currently what we're doing. Again, if biological sex doesn't make any difference in sports, then why even have separate men's and women's competitions at all?
[1] The Wikipedia page notes she uses male pronouns when referring to the time before transitioning.
Biological males are just stronger, in general.
It provides a disadvantage to biological females.
Which is not a transphobic take, it's a logical, biologically correct take.
I love how you resort to the "many people feel" standard with a hand wave. Many people where I live feel that cell phone towers give them cancer so we need to get rid of the cell phone towers on that burden of proof. Many people feel like the moon landing was faked. Many people think educating women is heretical. Shall we surrender to them as well?
Delegating judgment to other people is weak and cowardly. Feel free to form your own opinions based on your observation of the facts but it's disgusting to come in here and say "many people".
Isn't Joe Rogan one of those people? Hasn't he had at least three moon landing deniers on his podcast and agreed with them?
There is also a difference between someone with "contrarian views" and someone with dangerous views. I got no problem if he has someone on to talk about how we shouldn't introduce gun regulation in the wake of Sandy Hook. I have a problem with him giving a platform to someone who says Sandy Hook was fake, the parents who lost children are actors, and they should be harassed into admitting as much. Nothing good comes from giving a guy like that more attention, power, and money by having him on the show.
Agreed, but the least you could do is link to examples of him saying those things, since it's all recorded we don't need to rely on biased third-party reports.
I've listened to quite a few Rogan podcasts, I have never heard anything overly objectionable. (I have heard some stuff that was maybe critical of some parts of my own life, but I was ok with it.) Rogan is very entertaining, you might try some and see if you like it.
Also: I've found that I sometimes find podcasts featuring people I completely disagree with. I find that when I listen to these, I frequently learn interesting things. I'm sometimes offended a bit, but I knew that going in. I may be fooling myself, but I think it's making me a more well-rounded person.
Come to think of it, maybe just the speed and availability. Mass letter writing campaigns are totally a thing, but they require significant efforts to coordinate
Previously, more interaction was personal and ephemeral. If I said something to someone on the street, maybe the 5 closest people heard me.
In a small town, word would probably get around in ~2 weeks of social interactions, if it was scandalous enough.
Now, on the majority of social media platforms, if you reply to me then all of my friends + all of your friends immediately see the reply. Both the broadcasting and immediacy seem relatively novel.
A professor being canceled for saying e.g. that male and female brains are anatomically different, or worse, that non-binary genders is not a thing, has more to do with something else than culture/norms.
That something else is an interesting subject which has actually been discussed on JRE. :)
The brief period in time during which enlightenment values were held in higher regard.
> How is Spotify deleting episodes from their own platform tyranny?
The parent comment referred to staff within large tech companies. Anecdotally I hear plenty of stories about how activists have essentially bullied their way into positions of influence at some of the large tech companies, particularly to influence these types of decisions. Perhaps it is a coincidence in this case.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2006/09/the-b...
If you don't like it, don't sell your rights away, and go somewhere else. That's how free societies work. Private citizen can lobby, workers can protest, customers can boycott, and everyone's free to start their own venture with their own rules, that's how you deal with it.
A tyrant is someone who puts dissidents up against the wall and puts a bullet in their head, not a streaming platform deciding what they want to stream.
It certainly is not cruel for any definition of cruel I am familiar with. It certainly isn't arbitrary, Spotify is not doing this on a whim and it isn't taking down all the episodes, it clearly is being very deliberate, though you may disagree with their process. The only one could be unreasonable, but what exactly makes this unreasonable? Again, you may disagree with their reasoning, but it is not an unreasonable position.
Why don't we back off this extreme rhetoric that plagues our conversations today?
Those are slightly incorrect interpretations of the words 'arbitrary' and 'unreasonable'.
Reasonable doesn't mean 'has reasons'. Every decisions has reasons. If a king decides to chop someone's head off he had reasons - he felt like it. Being reasonable/unreasonable is about whether an opinion can be changed by evidence and argument. Almost all moderation is unreasonable, I've very rarely seen a moderator make a call and then not stick with it (being unreasonable isn't always a bad thing). Reasonableness is a judgement call on the quality of the reasons behind a decision.
Similarly, arbitrary doesn't mean unpredictable. It is a judgement call on whether the reasons behind an action are reasonable. Being done on behalf of a policy doesn't make an action reasonable.
It is quite an easily sustainable argument that any content moderation policy is arbitrary. Compare European vs American media norms around moderating sex - it is pretty easy to argue by comparison some of the standards floating around are arbitrary, because standards differ but both continents produce great media which involves sex.
None of these are by personal whim, there is clearly a process/system in place to determine whether an episode should stay.
unreasonable: "not guided by or based on good sense" and "beyond the limits of acceptability or fairness." Sorry, I just don't see how these decisions could be considered unreasonable. You may disagree with the moral sense of why they are doing this, you may disagree that that is good sense, but that would be best, your opinion, not some empirically correct point of view.
Which system are you thinking of? There is probably just a content moderation group that makes aye/nay calls. A system is something like judicial review of police actions, or that strange independent review council that Facebook is setting up.
Spotify's 'system' is going to boil down to someone making arbitrary calls. There isn't a science to it.
> Sorry, I just don't see how these decisions could be considered unreasonable.
Millions of people endorse Joe Rogan, he is a benchmark of what acceptability means. Joe Rogan talking about something is almost definitely marking it as something that is a matter of interest to the public and a legit topic of conversation.
He is far more qualified to decide what is and isn't acceptable to his audience and the public discourse than Spotify, some random corporation filled with people who passed a job interview.
Censoring his content is unreasonable by default, unless Spotify has a really compelling argument.
He is being more than fairly compensated. They don't have to host his white nationalist content.
They pay him handsomely for the privilege of removing the episodes where he uncritically nods along with the likes of Stephan Moleneaux and Alex Jones.
See: Hells Angels interviews on primetime TV in the 70s-80s etc at the peak of the fear surrounding them.
Or is it tyranny to not force a business to accept everyone, even if they don't comply with social norms like, say, wearing a mask?
If by new you mean new to the Roman Republic, sure. But pretty much every politician from the first kings and village elders justified what they did, good or bad, as part of the fight for righteousness.
Standing up to them comes at a high cost, but when has it ever been easy. Perhaps the rest of society has too much to lose now.