Joni Mitchell becoming a member of Neil Young in protest over Spotify

By Associated Press

NEW YORK: Joni Mitchell stated Friday she is looking for to take away all of her music from Spotify in solidarity with Neil Young, who ignited a protest in opposition to the streaming service for airing a podcast that featured a determine who has unfold misinformation concerning the coronavirus.

Mitchell, who like Young is a California-based songwriter who had a lot of her success within the Seventies, is the primary distinguished musician to affix Young’s effort.

“Irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives,” Mitchell stated Friday in a message posted on her web site. “I stand in solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical communities on this issue.”

Following Young’s motion this week, Spotify stated it had insurance policies in place to take away deceptive content material from its platform and has eliminated greater than 20,000 podcast episodes associated to COVID-19 because the begin of the pandemic.

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But the service has stated nothing about comic Joe Rogan, whose podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience” is the centrepiece of the controversy. Last month Rogan interviewed on his podcast Dr Robert Malone, an infectious illness specialist who has been banned from Twitter for spreading COVID misinformation.

Rogan is among the streaming service’s greatest stars, with a contract that might earn him greater than $100 million.

Young had known as on different artists to help him following his motion. While Mitchell, 78, just isn’t a present hitmaker, the Canadian native’s Spotify web page stated she had 3.7 million month-to-month listeners to her music. Her songs “Big Yellow Taxi” and “A Case of You” have each been streamed greater than 100 million instances on the service.

In a message on his web site Friday, Young stated that “when I left Spotify, I felt better.”

“Private companies have the right to choose what they profit from, just as I can choose not to have my music support a platform that disseminates harmful information,” he wrote. “I am happy and proud to stand in solidarity with the front line health care workers who risk their lives every day to help others.”

There was no quick response to a request for remark from Spotify.