“Irresponsible People Are Spreading Lies” – Joni Mitchell Removes Music From Spotify “In Solidarity” With Neil Young

Another popular Canadian-born classic rock musician has decided to pull her music from Spotify in solidarity with Neil Young, whose label pulled his music from the streaming giant in protest over its deal with Joe Rogan.

Popular folk musician Joni Mitchell – who, like Young, was in her hayday back in the 1970s but nevertheless maintains an audience among the young people of today (she’s particularly popular with a certain demographic: gay women) – announced her decision to pull her music from Spotify in a statement on her website.

“I’ve decided to remove all my music from Spotify. Irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives. I stand in solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical communities on this issue,” she said.

As of Saturday morning in New York, most of Mitchell’s catalogue was still available on the app; Young’s had been removed earlier in the week after he sent the company a letter declaring that the service could have “Neil Young or Joe Rogan. Not both”.

While Mitchell accused Spotify of “spreading lies”, she didn’t go into any details about what those lies might be. Instead she just posted a link to a previous open letter.

Unsurprisingly, the company chose Rogan, who in addition to being America’s most popular podcaster, is also a money-making machine who commands a minimum advertising spend of $1 million (advertisers who want in on his show must also also agree to buy ads on other Spotify podcasts as well), as the Verge explains.

While Rogan is of course a valuable asset to Spotify, as Glenn Greenwald tweeted in response to Mitchell’s statement, Spotify is probably already trying to figure out just how much pain it can take (in terms of the public backlash) before they finally would need to consider parting ways with a star whom they reportedly paid $100MM for exclusive rights to his show.

We can’t help but reflect on how strange it is that two musicians with a reputation for standing for freedom and against “the man” are now standing up for censorship.

The backlash started when Rogan hosted Dr. Robert Malone for an interview where he expressed his skepticism about the vaccines’ efficacy and safety. Dr. Malone spoke in favor of using Ivermectin, and discussed the concept of “mass formation psychosis”.

Originally posted on Zero hedge and republished here with permission.