That will include directing listeners to a dedicated Spotify COVID-19 hub. It has also promised to work on a content advisory for podcasts dealing with COVID-19.

Since the Young-sparked Rogan controversy, Spotify has seen fit to direct listeners to its platform rules, which you can read here. And that’s on me, and something that I will learn from.” “And these policies have been in place for years, but it was a mistake that they weren’t public. “Regarding our platform rules, the fact that we hadn’t moved fast enough to make our policies available externally has made the situation especially difficult,” Ek is reported as saying on the call. The Verge, meanwhile, has suggested that a town hall meeting between Ek and Spotify employees had a different tone. But I feel good about where we are in relation to that and obviously top line trends look very healthy still.” “And usually when we’ve had controversies in the past, those are measured in months and not days. “In general, what I would say is, it’s too early to know what the impact may be,” Ek is reported as saying. And that, despite that, he’s not worried about the streaming platform rebounding. The New York Times has reported that Ek, who’s Spotify’s CEO and founder, used an earnings call yesterday to reveal he was caught off guard by the controversy.

Proving bad publicity isn’t always good publicity, Spotify has seen its stock plunge over the past week, prompting damage-control (sort of) on the Rogan front. Since Young stood up he’s been followed by a parade of artists ranging from Joni Mitchell and Crosby, Stills and Nash, to India Arie and Canuck songwriter Danny Michel.

The podcast is aired exclusively on Spotify as part of a US$100 million deal signed in 2020. You might recall Neil Young asking Spotify to yank all of his music after getting outraged over Rogan spreading COVID-19 misinformation on the wildly popular Joe Rogan Experience podcast. And he’s done just that, sort of, over the whole Joe Rogan-Neil Young flap. He might wear the crown of the most powerful person in music (at least according to Billboard circa 2017), but that doesn’t mean Sweden’s Daniel Ek isn’t above admitting his mistakes.

Spotify stock plunge