Medical Professionals Call for Spotify to Address 'Joe Rogan Experience' Episode, Citing 'Extraordinarily Dangerous Ramifications' The controversial podcast host is being slammed for a recent episode with Dr. Robert Malone.
By Emily Rella •
The ever-contentious Joe Rogan Experience is being slammed by a group of medical professionals, who are calling for Spotify to "immediately establish a clear and public policy to moderate misinformation on its platform" after a recent episode of the podcast caused a stir.
Episode #1757 of The Joe Rogan Experience features the outspoken and contentious Dr. Robert Malone, who was previously banned from Twitter due to spreading misinformation about Covid — specifically criticism of the rapid distribution of vaccines and accusing the government of having ulterior motives.
"I invented the core mRNA vaccine technology platform. I have spent much of my career working on vaccine development," Dr. Malone's website claims. "I do believe that the short cuts that the USG have taken in bringing the mRNA and the adenovirus vaccines to market for this pandemic have been detrimental and contrary to globally accepted standards for developing and regulating safe and effective licensed products."
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A group of 270 doctors, scientists, graduate students, nurses, professors and more penned an open letter to the platform after the episode featuring Dr. Robert Malone aired.
"We are a coalition of scientists, medical professionals, professors, and science communicators spanning a wide range of fields such as microbiology, immunology, epidemiology, and neuroscience and we are calling on Spotify to take action against the mass-misinformation events which continue to occur on its platform," the letter reads.
The letter goes on to talk about how Rogan himself has perpetuated misinformation amid the pandemic, including encouraging young people to not get vaccinated and endorsing the use of non-FDA-approved ivermectin (which Rogan himself claimed he used to combat his symptoms when he was infected) amid numerous other conspiracy theories.
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"By allowing the propagation of false and societally harmful assertions, Spotify is enabling its hosted media to damage public trust in scientific research and sow doubt in the credibility of data-driven guidance offered by medical professionals," the letter states.
The Joe Rogan Experience receives an estimated 11 million listeners per episode. The podcast streams exclusively on the Spotify platform, with the titular host allegedly earning $100 million from the deal that was signed in 2020. According to the letter, the average listener of JRE is 24 years old, an impressionable demographic.
"Dr. Malone's interview has reached many tens of millions of listeners vulnerable to predatory medical misinformation, the letter warns. "Mass-misinformation events of this scale have extraordinarily dangerous ramifications."
