Spotify, Substack Stand Up for Free Speech, Joe Rogan

Did you know that Neil Young was an advocate for censorship in rock music?

The one-time rock and roll guy of Buffalo Springfield and  Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, – he of such legendary hits as “Rockin’ in the Free World” – was typical of 60’s and 70’s rock and roll types, supposedly free and easy. His use of drugs was not a problem, as he wrote about it in his memoirs. Now pretending there’s no problem with drug use would be decided misinformation.

Young suddenly switches on Spotify and says this to his managers outright.

Please notify Spotify immediately that you want my entire music removed from their site. Rogan and Young are possible. They can’t have both.

On his blog, he continued to write:

I sincerely hope that other artists and record companies will move off the SPOTIFY platform and stop supporting SPOTIFY’s deadly misinformation about COVID.

Joe Rogan’s sin on his popular podcast? Robert Malone (vaccine scientist) will be hosting a conversation about his opinions on the Biden Fauci-led push to get every American vaccinated.

Young was furious, and as such threatened Spotify. He demanded that Rogan be silenced or that he pull his music off Spotify.

Spotify quickly disposed of Young, to their credit. Young’s repeated rant about Rogan pushing misinformation about the vaccine by an open drug user is ironic.

Then there’s Substack, the subscription newsletter that is, as described here by Fox News, “popular among independent journalists and writers.”

The Substack sin also revolves around dissenting views on the vaccine, publishing what has been described in the Fox report as “anti-vaccine newsletters.” For that sin of allowing freedom of speech on its platform, Substack, as with Spotify, is under attack. Fox reports Substack’s reply in the following way:

“At Substack, we don’t make moderation decisions based on public pressure or PR considerations,” Substack Vice President of Communication Lulu Cheng Meservey began a lengthy Twitter thread on Wednesday. Our fundamental principle is to defend free expression. Even if we don’t like or agree with it. Principles come with a price.

Meservey tweeted a list of reasons why she’s “proud” to “defend free expression, even when it’s hard,” beginning with wanting a “thriving ecosystem full of fresh and diverse ideas,” which she stressed “can’t happen without the freedom to experiment, or even to be wrong.”

People already distrust institutions and media as well as each other. Knowing that dissident views are being suppressed can only make that distrust worse. Meservey said that withstanding scrutiny doesn’t make truths less powerful. The writers were promised that the place would allow them to do what is meaningful for them, and not be coddled or controlled. We promised we wouldn’t come between them and their audiences. For every writer who maintains theirs, we will keep our part of the agreement.”

This episode with Spotify and Substack would lead you to mistakenly believe they are discussing vaccination. The latest episode about the vaccine is only one in an ongoing series of episodes. They all have to do nothing with vaccinations and are dominated by open threats from the left to freedom speech.

Leftists tried to silence Rush Limbaugh long before COVID was introduced. They bullied and threatened his advertisers. Similar attacks were made on Fox primetime hosts Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, as well as Tucker Carlson.

As this is written, the conservative Newsmax cable channel informs that cable carriers Atlantic Broadband and Blue Ridge Cable are dropping the conservative network – just as Newsmax prepares to carry former President Donald Trump’s latest rally.

Elsewhere it is AT&T-owned Direct TV that has pulled the plug on the conservative One America News Network.

These are all in keeping with the headlines in The Washington TimesKelly Sadler was the editor of this article in February 2013.

Cable providers are pressured by the Democrats to remove Fox Newsmax and OANN.

It TimesAccording to the report:

Democrats, for the past four years, were absolutely horrified by President Donald J. Trump’s pending authoritarianism and assault on this nation’s First Amendment rights.

The Washington Post lamented that Trump keeps undermining freedom of speech. The Atlantic wrote of “Trump’s warped definition of free speech,” and USA Today opined: “Trump 2020 plan: New threats to press freedom and trust in media pillars of our democracy.”

After gaining full control over the White House and the legislative branch, Democrats now have the power to restrict free speech in ways that the former president could not dream of.

Two Democratic members of Congress wrote a letter Monday to the chief executive officers of the country’s largest television providers, bullying them into purging Fox News, Newsmax and One America News Network from their cable lineups on the basis of them promoting “misinformation and conspiracy theories.”

Democratic Reps. Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney want these cable providers to apply some newfound “moral or ethical principles … related to journalistic integrity,” in determining what content they should allow to be disseminated on their platforms.

So in the wake of the attacks on Spotify and Substack (not to mention all the rest) where are all those liberals who were quick to defend free speech and a free press when Trump’s decidedly imaginary assault on both were supposedly getting underway?

Their voices suddenly stopped. Oder they joined forces with the antifree speech, antifree press lynch mob. This is the latest headline from this category. The Washington Post:

Listeners on podcasts and newsletters can connect with conspiracy theorists who are banned from major social networks
Substack, a newsletter company, is making millions from anti-vaccine content according to estimations

Did you get that? If the subject is one The Postobjections to – this time, different opinions on the vaccine. Suddenly free speech and free press are serious threats that need to be suppressed.

It’s not a mistake. America is involved in a battle royal with leftist censors who are determined to silence any and all views on any and all subjects they don’t like.

Substack as well Spotify deserve to be celebrated for their courage in standing up for American freedom of speech and press.

Oder, to put it another manner? To borrow from a famous rock star, Spotify and Substack are “Rockin’ in the Free World.”