The news that Spotify opted to remove Neil Young’s music rather than Joe Rogan’s podcast shows that would-be Arsenal owner, Daniel Ek, is no better than the rest of the billionaires on this planet.

Daniel Ek
Daniel Ek

When Daniel Ek made his very public moves to try and prise Arsenal away from the Kroenkes, many fans saw him as a ‘better’ option than the American.

Ek, however, has shown himself to be just like every other billionaire on the planet – only concerned with money, regardless of who that hurts.

Recently, legendary musician, Neil Young gave Spotify an ultimatum – remove Joe Rogan’s podcast, that has eagerly shared anti-vaxx nonsense, or remove his music from the platform.

Young told Spotify this week: “They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.”

Young also added that Spotify was “the home of life-threatening Covid misinformation”, adding: “Lies being sold for money.”

Spotify have now opted to remove Young’s music and allow Joe Rogan to continue spreading his own personal brand of ‘information’.

Rogan has what seems to be the biggest podcast on the planet and Spotify paid him a reported £75m for the exclusive rights back in 2020.

“We want creators to create,” Spotify chief executive Ek told The Financial Times when the deal was signed. “It’s what they do best. We’re not looking to play a role in what they should say.”

It receives around 200 million downloads every month.

In a statement, Spotify said, “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,” it said.

“We have detailed content policies in place and we’ve removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to Covid since the start of the pandemic.”

While I don’t think anyone believes Rogan should be removed entirely, it does fall to Spotify to take responsibility for the content they platform and with this artist they appear unwilling to do that.

“Thank you Warner Brothers for standing with me and taking the hit – losing 60% of my worldwide streaming income in the name of Truth,” Young wrote online.

As for Arsenal fans, Ek has shown himself to be far from the saviour they were hoping for to free them from the Kroenkes, but then he should never have been seen that way in the first place.

Nobody in this world becomes a billionaire without indulging in some seriously questionable practices somewhere on the road.

At this point, when it comes to club owners, it’s all about degrees of awful rather than good and bad.

Joni Mitchell has also announced that she will also be removing her music from Spotify for teh same reasons as Young.

Mitchell said in a statement, “I Stand With 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. —Joni Mitchell

“Read An Open Letter to Spotify: A call from the global scientific and medical communities to implement a misinformation policy.”