Joy Behar expressed her frustrations during Monday’s broadcast of “The View” on ABC, complaining that not enough high-profile musicians or podcasters had removed their own work from Spotify over the platform’s failure to dump podcast juggernaut Joe Rogan.
Behar and her cohosts — Whoopi Goldberg, Sara Haines, Sunny Hostin, and Ana Navarro — responded to the news that Joni Mitchell had joined musician Neil Young in pulling her music from Spotify over claims that Rogan was promoting “COVID misinformation,” and Behar said that she would have liked to see more artists follow suit.
WATCH:
SPOTIFY TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR CONTENT? Joni Mitchell joined Neil Young in boycotting Spotify for letting podcaster Joe Rogan invite guests who push COVID misinformation on his show — #TheView reacts after Rogan addressed the controversy. https://t.co/LzqPUInzdr pic.twitter.com/SkJ4M75wfc
— The View (@TheView) January 31, 2022
Hostin argued that Spotify had effectively been forced to “do the right thing,” saying that it was a step in the right direction for the platform to preface podcasts like Rogan’s with a disclaimer about what kind of information listeners might be exposed to when they tuned in to his show.
“He is peddling misinformation. Thank you to Spotify for being a little bit more transparent about your policies, about the consequences to violating those policies and the disclaimer. I don’t think that is censorship at all,” Hostin said, claiming that the information Rogan allowed on his show “could lead to the death of people.”
“I am always interested in having good corporate citizens. I think they lost $2 billion in market value after Neil Young pulled his music. Is this more about they want to do the right thing? I think they were forced to do the right thing,” she added.
“Last year Spotify reviewed an episode where he advised 21-year-olds not to get vaccinated,” Behar said, noting that the platform had allowed that episode to remain on the platform. “How is it in their guidelines to tell people to not get vaccinated?”
Navarro cut in then, saying that the people who were to be praised were the people who “tuned off” Spotify in the wake of the controversy — like Mitchell and Young — because they were the ones driving the conversation. But she also said that Rogan was to be commended because he had apologized and said that he could do better in the future.
“Joe Rogan, you know, I am so used to seeing these people who lie and misinform and spread conspiracy theories double down instead of apologize. Even though he is not my cup of tea, I don’t listen to him, I don’t agree with him, I found it refreshing to hear the words ‘I’m sorry’ come out of his mouth,” she said.
Haines agreed, adding, “I thought his apology was refreshing because he said, ‘I can do better.’ He told us about the Spotify disclaimers. He is going to do better to have opposing views right after another. I guess he does his own scheduling and he said, ‘I can do better at that. I can do better at preparing.’ He wings it because he is one of the first podcasts that came on and just was a bunch of friends talking and that was enough to make a good podcast. I appreciated that he said, ‘I was wrong, I see the concern, I appreciate the pushback and I am going to do this.’ We don’t see that enough.”
Behar jumped in then, saying that she was disappointed to see such a small number of artists who were willing to “put their money where their mouth is.”
“I was disappointed, as contrary to you, I was disappointed that more musicians and singers, etc., didn’t pull out. They are on twitter all the time trashing people who don’t get vaccinated and then they keep their music there. This would have been a good opportunity to show what you believe in. And I didn’t see it. I only saw two people in the ’60s and ’70s. Let’s see some young people do it. Let’s see Taylor and those guys take a stand,” she said.