Joe Rogan responds to Spotify employees over censorship claims

The Spotify-Joe Rogan drama seems to have taken an unexpected turn as the 53-year-old American comedian and podcast host revealed that he was not informed about Spotify employees' reported plans to go on strike if ‘editorial oversights’ over his content aren’t permitted.

During a JRE episode with Tim Dillion, Rogan said that Spotify is yet to reach out to him officially and ‘nothing at all’ has been said or done in this regard.

Earlier in May, Joe Rogan bagged a $100 million licensing deal with Spotify. The said deal gave the platform access to over 1500 episodes of the JRE podcast that weren’t available before. Later, Rogan clarified in an Instagram post that his podcasts will be available exclusively on Spotify by the end of this year.

“We will still have clips up on YouTube but full versions of the show will only be on Spotify after the end of the year.

"I’m excited to have the support of the largest audio platform in the world and I hope you folks are there when we make the switch!”

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Spotify employees threaten to quit, Rogan says he was told ‘nothing at all’

We recently reported the uproar among Spotify employees who threatened to go on a full-blown strike if their demands are not met. Giving credence to the story, an anonymous post made by an alleged ‘Spotify’ employee was later discovered, in which the individual confirmed that the New York office was, in fact, planning to go on strike if ‘editorial oversights’ over Rogan’s content aren’t permitted. These oversights would allow Spotify employees to issue warnings as well as correct and cross-check JRE podcasts to ensure that they don’t have ‘problematic content’.

Spotify employees planning a strike against Joe Rogan

In the face of heavy criticism, Joe Rogan, during his recent podcast with Tim Dillion, explained that he has ‘not even once’ been directly contacted about the matter. When Dillion prompted Joe to speak about the Spotify controversy, the 53-year-old responded with the following:

“They have literally said nothing to me, Zero. It’s never come up. Now, is there someone at Spotify that’s complaining about the Abigail episode? I am sure. I am sure that someone is complaining about it. Is it a transphobic episode? Its not. It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with the fact that human beings are actually malleable.”

You can watch the entire podcast here:

Note: Scroll to 1:02:12 to check out the Spotify statement