Spotify pulls Neil Young’s music after his ultimatum regarding Joe Rogan and ‘fake information about vaccines’

Spotify is in the process of removing Neil Young’s music two days after Young posted a letter on his website demanding that his catalog be removed in response to the “fake information about vaccines” on the platform.

“We want all the world’s music and audio content to be available to Spotify users. With that comes great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom for creators,” a Spotify spokesman told The Washington Post in a statement. “We have detailed content policies in place and we’ve removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. We regret Neil’s decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon.”

Young's letter, which has since been deleted, was addressed to his manager and an executive at his record label and cited Joe Rogan by name as part of his issue with Spotify.

"I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines — potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them," he wrote in the letter, according to Rolling Stone. "Please act on this immediately today and keep me informed of the time schedule."

"I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform," the letter continued. "They can have Rogan or Young. Not both."

Young, the Canadian rock legend whose best known hits include "Heart of Gold," "Harvest Moon" and "Rockin' in the Free World," had roughly 6.6 million monthly listeners on Spotify. His manager, Frank Gironda, told the Daily Beast that the issue was "something that's really important to Neil. He's very upset about this disinformation."

Representatives for Young have not yet responded to The Post's request for comment.

Rogan, who hosts one of the most popular podcasts on the platform, has repeatedly spread misinformation to his estimated 11 million listeners about the coronavirus vaccines. In April, for example, he came under fire for suggesting healthy, young people shouldn't get vaccinated.

“If you’re like 21 years old, and you say to me, ‘Should I get vaccinated?’ I’ll go no,” he said on his podcast. He continued, “If you’re a healthy person, and you’re exercising all the time, and you’re young, and you’re eating well, like, I don’t think you need to worry about this.” He added that both of his children got COVID-19 and it was “no big deal.”

"He is incorrect when he says that young people don't need to worry about COVID," Rebecca Wurtz, an infectious-disease physician and population health informaticist who teaches at the University of Minnesota, told The Post at the time. "I'm really glad that his children had minimal symptoms from the virus. I hope that anyone who caught it from them, or caught it from those who caught it from them, are doing as well."

Last September, Rogan discussed catching COVID and treating it with a number of therapeutics and treatments. These included ivermectin, a medicine used to kill parasites in animals and humans, which is not authorized or approved by either the CDC and the FDA to treat COVID.

In December, Rogan invited Robert Malone, a physician who has become a prominent skeptic of the coronavirus vaccines, to appear on his show.

As The Post's Timothy Bella wrote, "Malone had a following before his 'Joe Rogan Experience' interview that was released Dec. 31 — but that show introduced him to an even wider audience. On it, he promoted an unfounded theory called 'mass-formation psychosis,' telling Rogan that a 'third of the population [is] basically being hypnotized' into believing what the mainstream media and Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious-disease expert and chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, report on the vaccines. Malone went on to compare the country's pandemic policies to Nazi Germany."

In response to Malone's appearance on the podcast, more than 270 medical professionals signed an open letter urging Spotify "to immediately establish a clear and public policy to moderate misinformation on its platform."

“The average age of JRE listeners is 24 years old and according to data from Washington State, unvaccinated 12-34 year olds are 12 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID than those who are fully vaccinated,” the letter stated. “Dr. Malone’s interview has reached many tens of millions of listeners vulnerable to predatory medical misinformation.”