Canada’s Joni Mitchell Also Pulls Music from Spotify Over Joe Rogan

Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell on Friday announced the removal of her catalogue from music streaming service Spotify in protest of alleged vaccine misinformation being spread by the platform’s star podcaster Joe Rogan and his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience — reports Billboard.

Joni has become the second major artist to pull music from Spotify over concerns about vaccine misinformation, joining her old friend and contemporary Neil Young.

“I’ve decided to remove all my music from Spotify. Irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives. I stand in solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical communities on this issue,” Mitchell wrote in a brief note on her official website.

In her note, Mitchell referenced an open letter signed earlier this month by a group of 270 scientists, professors, and healthcare professionals, accusing Rogan’s podcast of “promoting baseless conspiracy theories” pertaining to COVID-19 vaccination and demanding that action be taken against mass-misinformation events on its platform.

On Monday, folk-rock star Neil Young penned an open letter to his manager and label, asking them to remove his music from Spotify over the same issue.

“With an estimated 11 million listeners per episode, JRE, which is hosted exclusively on Spotify, is the world’s largest podcast and has tremendous influence. Spotify has a responsibility to mitigate the spread of misinformation on its platform, though the company presently has no misinformation policy,” wrote Young.

Young’s request was granted by the music streamer on Thursday, and his music has since been removed from the platform but remains available on other services like Apple Music. Young also encouraged other artists to follow in his lead, but admitted he “can’t really expect that to happen.”

Mitchell’s music is still available to stream on Spotify at the time of writing, but it is likely she has made a similar request to Young’s that just hasn’t been acted on as of yet.

Mitchell and Young both share a manager and are signed with the same record label — Warner Music Group Corp. Mitchell currently has over 3.7 million monthly listeners on Spotify.