Spotify took action after Joni Mitchell and others joined Neil Young

Spotify announced that they will have slight changes in policies around content that concern the COVID19 pandemic. This platform has been facing criticism for allowing a particular podcast by Joe Rogan that has some misinformation about the pandemic.

Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify wrote on Sunday, ‘You’ve had a lot of questions over the last few days about our platform policies and the lines we have drawn between what is acceptable and what is not.’

He further added on the news release, ‘We have had rules in place for many years but admittedly, we haven’t been transparent around the policies that guide our content more broadly.’

The new and changed policies include publicly publishing the company’s internal rules that will share what is allowed on the platform, ‘testing ways to highlight’ those rules to the creator, and ‘working to add a content advisory to any podcast episode that includes a discussion about COVID19.’

‘We know we have a critical role to play in supporting creator expression while balancing it with the safety of our users,’ Ek also added, ‘In that role, 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.’

The controversy started last week when Neil Young posted an open letter demanding Spotify to remove his musical works from that platform as a protest to the ‘fake information about vaccines’ on the platform in The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. He prominently said, ‘They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.’

After Spotify decided to exclude Young by removing his catalog, within a few days others began to join Young. ‘I’ve decided to remove all my music from Spotify,’ eight-time Grammy-winning songwriter Joni Mitchell wrote in a statement on her website on Friday.

Nils Lofgren, the frontman of rock band Grin and a member of both Crazy Horse and Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band wrote on Young’s website that he would ‘cut ties with Spotify’ and argued that ‘all musicians, artists and music lovers everywhere’ should do the same.

According to Variety Spotify has faced over 2 billion dollars of fall out in the last week due to this controversy.