Several health experts called Spotify to establish a firm policy that will prevent COVID-19 misinformation from spreading all over the platform. Amid the pandemic, coronavirus cases continue to surge together with the increasing number of false claims about vaccines, medicines, and more.
To address this concern, doctors, nurses, educators, and scientists wrote a letter to the Swedish music streaming giant to fulfill its responsibility in removing wrong information about the healthcare crisis.
The Joe Rogan Spotify Podcast
Just a short throwback to April 2021, Tech Times reported that comedian Joe Rogan shared his opinion about vaccination on his Spotify podcast. During the discussion, he said that "healthy" young persons should not be forced to be vaccinated. According to him, the most vulnerable individuals should be the only ones who should get a shot.
After the brief talk about getting the COVID-19 vaccination, several critics hit Rogan about his point of view. Some comments said that people should get their advice on vaccinations from CDC and not from Rogan.
Rogan's anti-vax promotion has reached Media Matters, an information watchdog that corrects COVID-19 conspiracy theories and other erroneous details about vaccines and medicines.
Related Article: YouTube Cracks Down on COVID-19 Misinformation Deleting Over 1 Million 'Dangerous' Videos
Robert Malone's False Claims About COVID-19
Just last December 31, Rogan engaged with Dr. Robert Malone on his podcast regarding coronavirus. Engadget reported that the latter said that he was one of the virologists behind mRNA technology.
During the podcast, Malone has reportedly spoken about "mass formation psychosis" which led people to believe in the effectiveness of the vaccines. He also created false claims about the use of ivermectin as a legit COVID-19 solution.
After that, several platforms including Twitter and YouTube banned the viral clip about Malon's false claims. The social media firm banned him after he violated the COVID-19 misinformation policy.
Spotify Needs COVID-19 Misinformation Policy
Another report from Rolling Stone said that medical professionals wrote a letter to Spotify to create an official misinformation policy that other platforms have.
Instead of addressing concerns by informing Rogan or deleting the podcast episode, the music streaming giant should have a set of rules that will put content creators accountable for the spread of false COVID-19 information.
In an interview with Axios, Spotify boss Daniel Ek said that the company has no "editorial responsibility" over podcasts.
"We have a lot of really well-paid rappers on Spotify too, that make tens of millions of dollars, if not more, each year from Spotify. And we don't dictate what they're putting in their songs, either," he said.
How Social Media Platforms Address COVID Misinformation
When the pandemic began in March 2020, Twitter was able to act quickly to mitigate the spread of wrong coronavirus information.
At that time, the social media giant said that all tweets which discuss "unverified claims" about COVID-19 will be removed.
The solution was rather different with Reddit. Tech Times wrote that the platform refused to ban communities that allow COVID-19 misinformation. It immediately drew flak from other Redditors back in September.
Read Also: Facebook Combats Misinformation, Removes 14 Million Deceptive COVID-19 Related Posts in 2020
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Joseph Henry
