Spotify CEO Daniel Ek told employees Wednesday morning that the streaming service doesn’t closely supervise controversial podcast host Joe Rogan because the company sees itself as a platform to distribute Rogan’s show rather than as Rogan’s publisher, according to two employees who listened to the remarks.
Ek told employees at a livestreamed company town hall that “Spotify doesn’t approve Rogan’s guest list, they don’t look at his content until it goes up, and so they don’t have editing power,” recounted one employee, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. “They just look at it after it’s already on the platform and remove it if it doesn’t meet guidelines.”
At the employee town hall, both Ek and chief content and advertising business officer Dawn Ostroff “repeatedly used the phrase ‘if we were a publisher,’ very strongly implying we are not a publisher, so we don’t have editorial responsibility” for Rogan’s show, said a second Spotify employee who listened to the remarks — and who, like some Spotify employees listening, found the executives’ position “a dubious assertion at best.”
