Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson showed his support for Joe Rogan this week after the top-rated podcast host faced allegations of “spreading COVID-19 misinformation” on his popular Spotify show.
Rogan recently faced criticism from several people, including singer Neil Young who demanded the tech giant remove “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast from the platform after claiming the 54-year-old host promoted “misinformation” about COVID-19 and vaccines.
“Great stuff here brother. Perfectly articulated,” Johnson commented on the post. “Look forward to coming on one day and breaking out the tequila with you.”
Rogan said in the post he wasn’t trying to “promote misinformation” or “be controversial”—adding that he was simply seeking to have conversations on his podcast with people who have “differing opinions.”
“I’ve never tried to do anything with this podcast other than to just talk to people and have interesting conversations,” Rogan said.
Rogan also said that he schedules the guests on his podcast himself and oftentimes has no idea what he’s going to talk about until the show starts. He noted that in the future he could book doctors with different opinions right after talking to “the controversial ones” and make sure that he researches everything, “the controversial topics in particular,” before discussing them.
Commenting on Young, as well as Joni Mitchell and several other musicians, demanding Spotify to remove all their music from the platform in protest over the tech giant declining to get rid of “The Joe Rogan Experience” episodes, the host responded that he’s very sorry and most certainly doesn’t want that.
“I’m a Neil Young fan. I’ve always been a Neil Young fan. And definitely no hard feelings towards Joni Mitchell. I love her, too,” Rogan said. “The problem I have with the term misinformation, especially today, is that many of the things that we thought of as misinformation just a short while ago are now accepted as fact.
“Eight months ago, if you said if you get vaccinated you can still catch COVID-19 and you can still spread COVID-19—you will be removed from social media … Now, that’s accepted as fact,” he added.
“Personally, there are plenty of individuals and views on Spotify that I disagree with strongly,” Ek wrote. “It is important to me that we don’t take on the position of being content censor while also making sure that there are rules in place and consequences for those who violate them.”
Ek said that the advisories will link to Spotify’s fact-based COVID-19 hub in what he described as a “new effort to combat misinformation.” It will roll out in the coming days, Ek said. He did not specifically reference Rogan or Young.
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