Photo: Ben Houdijk (Shutterstock)
Two years ago, Neil Young pulled his music from Spotify in response to Joe Rogan’s spreading anti-vaccine misinformation on his podcast, which was prominently featured on the platform. Young is back on Spotify although he’s not too thrilled about it.
“My decision comes as music services Apple and Amazon have started serving the same disinformation podcast features I had opposed at Spotify,” Young said in a blog post Tuesday. “I cannot just leave Apple and Amazon, like I did Spotify, because my music would have very little streaming outlet to music lovers at all, so I have returned to Spotify, in sincere hopes that Spotify sound quality will improve and people will be able to hear and feel all the music as we made it.”
It
was
at
the
end
of
2021
when
Rogan
doubled
down
on
spreading
misinformation
about
the
covid-19
vaccine
with
episodes
featuring
Dr.
Robert
Malone
and
Dr.
Peter
McCullough,
both
of
whom
spent
most
of
the
pandemic
spreading
false
info
about
the
effects
of
the
vaccine.
Spotify
did
add
warnings
to
episodes
containing
possible
misinformation
about
covid
but
the
company
didn’t
remove
the
controversial
episodes.
Rogan
somewhat
apologized
for
platforming
anti-vaxxers
at
the
time,
but
has
since
stepped
up
his
conspiracy
nonsense
including
sharing
a
fake
story
about
a
school
providing
litter
boxes
to
“furry”
students.
Aside from Rogan’s bullshit, Young also has not cared for anything less than the highest-quality audio for his music. Over the years he released his own “high resolution” portable music player, wrote a book about his mission to save high-quality music, and supported other music services that featured high-fidelity audio such as Qobuz and Tidal. Young wrote that he hopes Spotify creates a limited “Hi res tier” to provide the kind of audio quality he wants for his music.
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