Hundreds of doctors are calling on Spotify to remove an episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast from the platform.
Rogan was criticised for having Dr. Robert Malone host his podcast. Malone (a vaccine scientist) was removed from Twitter after tweets he made that challenged the efficacy and safety of COVID-19 vaccines. The episode is now being removed by Spotify, according to doctors.
In an open letter, 270 doctors asked the audio streaming service to remove Rogan’s podcast to stop so-called “misinformation” about the virus. Rogan’s views regarding COVID-19 treatment have also led to Rogan being censored.
Jessica Malaty Rivera, an infectious disease epidemiologist, warned people to not believe Malone just because of his medical credentials.
“When I saw they were falling victim to this, I spoke to some colleagues and we said something has to be done at this point,” she said.
“With an estimated 11 million listeners per episode, JRE, which is hosted exclusively on Spotify, is the world’s largest podcast and has tremendous influence,” the letter read. “Spotify has a responsibility to mitigate the spread of misinformation on its platform, though the company presently has no misinformation policy.”
The authenticity of Malone’s claims in interview was confirmed by fact-checking in the letter.
“People who don’t have the scientific or medical background to recognize the things he’s saying are not true and are unable to distinguish fact from fiction are going to believe what [Malone is]This is probably the most popular podcast anywhere in the world, he said. And that’s terrifying,” Dr. Ben Rein, a neuroscientist at Stanford, said of his involvement in drafting the letter.
One doctor said Spotify should implement a more rigorous policy to combat “misinformation.”
“Any podcast that platforms dangerous people, people spreading dangerous ideas and misinformation, should not be allowed to go unchecked on the Spotify platform,” Abbie Richards, who came up with the letter idea, said. “We’re not focused on something as small as just one episode or Rogan. They need to implement a policy and carry it out.”
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