[telios]

I can somewhat understand the point of the employees here, but ultimately, I think it's a symptom of a larger problem - of easy propagation misinformation, with very little oversight. When someone makes a veritably false claim, like "they've arrested left-wing people for lighting those forest fires," it is incredibly difficult to retract that statement; and even now, retracting such statements doesn't change the impact the original statement had. People are still going to believe the original statement, regardless of its truth, or they won't see the correction - especially when, in this case, the original audio was not corrected, and the apology issued separately. The original could remain unchallenged in the original audio, and someone who doesn't know the context or follow the content creator may not know that the claim was false - assuming good faith. Or, the clip could be pulled out of context, with no apology or correction, to tout that statement, to push an agenda. So now, even with a veritably false claim, you can potentially demonize the "left-wing people" intentionally or not - and I would argue that the original intention does not matter.

Joe Rogan has been given a platform, and he needs to use it responsibly. I'm still on the fence over whether or not Spotify should enforce that he uses the platform responsibly. When do you draw the line? At what point does his right to use Spotify as a platform outweigh the consequences of using the platform irresponsibly, potentially - or indirectly - causing harm? Inviting guests that promote transphobic onto his platform seems innocent enough, but transphobia is a major issue contesting the country, even ignoring veritably false claims being made about transpeople, and people have died over this conflict. If the platform is used irresponsibly, and veritably false information is propagated by the guest on his platform, is Joe Rogan responsible for that? What if that misinformation is what causes someone to commit a crime against transpeople? At what point should Joe Rogan, the one who promoted misinformation on a platform he controls, and that many people listen to, be held responsible for the consequences of what (and how) he disseminates to the people? Does his right to say false things outweigh the right of others to live without fear or persecution?

I have yet to come up with an answer, because I don't know what the best solution is yet.

[wolco2]

"Does his right to say false things outweigh the right of others to live without fear or persecution"

No one has granted a right to live without fear. Fear is an emotional response.

I don't think a general non-persecution right exists.

A right to free speech exists from government persecution. A right to be treated equally based on gender exists at the government level.

The key point is spofity has a right to offer Joe money to use their platforms. Employees who disagree based on politics and threaten to quit working is new. If the company decides to replace them I don't believe they are in a legal position to strike.

[retrocat]

> I don't think a general non-persecution right exists.

Yes, and no; one can be criticized for membership of a social group, but when people take action against the social group, I believe that can start to step into the territory of hate crimes, but I don't know if I'd consider that implying a right.

> The key point is spofity has a right to offer Joe money to use their platforms. Employees who disagree based on politics and threaten to quit working is new. If the company decides to replace them I don't believe they are in a legal position to strike.

This, I agree with. My original post was about the morals of the move, both on Spotify's part, and the Employees' part, but I have very little doubt about the legal aspect of it.

Spotify can offer Joe Rogan money. The employees can protest this. Spotify can perform editorial control. The question is, should they?

[Barrin92]

> Employees who disagree based on politics and threaten to quit working is new

labour strikes have existed for decades. Primarily for better working conditions of course, but also environmental issues or equal civil rights and so on.

What's new isn't that employees use their bargaining power for political or social causes, it's that they have more success with it in tech or other knowledge sectors. That's a function of there being relatively few workers. The managerial and professional class has become aware of the fact that they're hard to replace, and employers actually can't fire them all, in other words the top 15% have figured out that they don't actually share any goals with the top 0.1% percent, but that they're in quite a unique position to demand what they think is right.

[SllX]

“Given” a platform? Spotify is a downgrade from the reach he had before; Spotify paid for The Joe Rogan Experience, with terms, in order to expand their audience and you don’t think they might want to preserve what they paid for? The solution is probably to not tell other people how to live their lives and what to do with their businesses. A controversial proposition these days, I know.

[retrocat]

Whether or not Spotify is a downgrade is not the point here; the point is that Joe Rogan has a platform that allows him to propagate his message to the mass, and that Spotify has a role in that. That is all. The same could be said if he was uploading videos to YouTube, or hosting a website. At some point, some company helped him disseminate the message he wanted to spread - in the case of hosting a website, for example, a hosting provider, or a domain name service, or an ISP. I think it's nonsensical and potentially dangerous to say an ISP is responsible for what Joe Rogan has said, but on the other end of the spectrum, YouTube or Spotify has to do some sort of filtering on the content they help disseminate. How should they decide, then?

The problem with the latter part of your comment is that it assumes that everyone lives on separate islands, and that what one person does has no impact on the other people around them. It does. It's alright to say that we shouldn't dictate peoples lives or businesses, but there's a point that that breaks down - if we can't dictate people's lives, why do we jail people?