Spotify Keeps Podcasts of Alleged Criminals and Racists

Since many on the left have called on Spotify to remove Joe Rogan’s podcast from its lineup, it is worth noting that the podcasts of convicted criminals and alleged racists are still up.

Rogan has faced criticism on the left for allegedly spreading “misinformation” about COVID-19.

Fox Business reported that Spotify “rarely censors content” and first pointed out that Louis Farrakhan’s podcast was still listed on the platform, despite the fact that he is notorious for his anti-Semitic comments. Gary Glitter (a convicted pedophile who is also a glamrock singer) had his podcast as well. R. Kelly’s podcast was present as well. Kelly was convicted of sex traficking, kidnapping and other crimes.

Over the years, social media platforms have adopted a variety of stances regarding Farrakhan.

Farrakhan, the founder of the Nation of Islam, once said: “You know what they do: call me an anti-Semite. You must stop it. I’m anti-termite,” and chanted later “Death to America” in his to Iran.

He also once said Jews were “the synagogue of Satan.”

Farrakhan declared at that time, “You’re wicked deceivers to the American people.” You have taken their blood. These people are not true Jews. You are Satan’s synagogue, and your tentacles have been wrapped around the U.S. government. Now, you deceive and send the nation to hell.

Twitter said his anti-Semitic language was not “dehumanizing language.” He was later temporarily banned from Twitter in 2020, although the platform attributed the ban to a “spam filter error.” 

He was banned by Instagram and Facebook for making comments. “We’ve always banned individuals or organizations that promote or engage in violence and hate, regardless of ideology,” the platform said at the time.

YouTube removed Farrakhan’s account in 2020. “After updating our guidelines last year to better address content that spreads hateful conspiracy theories, we saw a 5x spike in video removals and have terminated over 25,000 channels for violating our hate speech policies,” YouTube said at the time in a statement to The Verge. The platform added that it has“strict” rules governing hate speech and will terminate any channels that “repeatedly or egregiously” violate them. 

Farrakhan was a close associate of several prominent Democrats including President Barack Obama.