[throwawaysea]

I am surprised news outlets are still trying to give life to this manufactured crisis. Who cares what Neil Young thinks about any of this? Why are these celebrities put on a pedestal by news media and individuals? At best, Neil Young is a has-been whose music will soon be forgotten by newer generations that have long since moved on.

More importantly, Neil Young has shown himself to be for censorship and against the free exchange of ideas. His stance is fundamentally at odds with free societies that harbor enlightenment values. The problem is not Rogan or Ek, but Young and the new authoritarian pro-censorship/deplatforming political tribes, who abuse their voice and power to silence those who don’t share their ideology. That’s not the stance of reasonable people - that’s the stance of zealots, no different than religious zealots of a different era.

[nerdawson]

> I am surprised news outlets are still trying to give life to this manufactured crisis.

They’ll keep writing the articles for as long as people are going to click them. These are the same outlets that can spin a couple of tweets into a story about a “growing backlash to xyz”. However low you imagine the bar to be, it’s lower.

[scrubs]

Wrong. If there's an issue with public safety Spotify has 51%+ responsibility. Joe less. If no issue Young is talking about a non problem. The rest of your adjective laden diatribe is off topic.

Get in the game. There a wide limits to what you can opine; it's finite and large and a few things have consequences. Narrow: Spotify kicks Joe off; Joe walks elsewhere. Or legal. Nobody said consequence free.

[throwawaysea]

Anything can be construed to be a safety issue. Spotify has no responsibility. It’s a dumb pipe and people can make up their own mind as to what to do with information they receive from content creators. If you think exchanging information is dangerous to the point that it requires censorship, then you’re arguing for authoritarianism and tyranny.

[falcolas]

> It’s a dumb pipe

A dumb pipe doesn't pay to host exclusive content.

Joe Rogan is Spotify's business partner, and his reputation will, accordingly, have impact on Spotify's reputation.

[liamwestray]

[flagged]

[emptysongglass]

Resorting to ad hominem attacks on HN? Given the wealth of reading you signal you've done, you'd do well to start with the Hacker News Guidelines before commenting further [1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[dang]

You can't post personal attacks like this to HN, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. We ban accounts that do this, so please don't do it again.

Perhaps you don't feel you owe people you disagree with better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it—much better.

If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

[liamwestray]

Apologies. Won't happen again. Appreciate the reasonable moderation here.

[sshine]

There is absolutely no need for name-calling.

[throwawaysea]

To me, Spotify is a dumb pipe connecting listeners to content they want to hear. I use the phrase “dumb pipe” because the users don’t care about much of their features beyond that aspect (and there really aren’t many features). The libraries of alternative services also mostly overlap. Additionally, marginal attempts at exclusivity or editorialized content don’t change what they materially are, just like a telecom utility adding content businesses (like Verizon and Oath) doesn’t get to escape their status as a common carrier utility service.

I also didn’t ask that Neil Young be denied his first amendment rights, so you’re attacking a straw man. But I did point out that he is abusing his power (of celebrity) to try and silence political adversaries. Censorship is censorship. It doesn’t matter if it is brought on by the government or individuals with power or masses with collective power.

As for your patronizing tone telling me what to read - I’ve actually read some of those things you listed, for what it’s worth.

Signed, a nitwit.

[dang]

Would you please stop perpetuating flamewars on HN? You've been doing it a lot lately—enough that I'm starting to wince when I see your username. It's not what this site is for, and it evokes worse from others, and you're responsible for provoking that.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: I took a closer look and saw that you've clearly been using HN primarily for ideological battle. That's not allowed here, regardless of what you're battling for or against—it's in fact the worst thing you can contribute to destroying this place for its intended purpose. Here are links to many past explanations:

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Since we've asked you many times to use HN as intended and you've continued not to, I've banned the account.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [e-mail] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

[mohanmcgeek]

News outlets run smear campaigns to destroy their competition.

This has less to do with politics.

[taxicabjesus]

> I am surprised news outlets are still trying to give life to this manufactured crisis.

The purpose of this particular manufactured crisis is to take out Joe Rogan, who does not kowtow to the COVID-19 zeitgeist.

> who abuse their voice and power to silence those who don’t share their ideology.

Reminds me of the quote, 'First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win' [0]. This is the 'fight you' phase of Humanity's rebellion against the charlatans (you used zealot [1], but I think charlatan [2] is more appropriate).

Two tweets about the attempted cancellation of Joe Rogan:

"This is a professional political attack. Three waves one right after the other is not a coincidence. Good spacing, good timing, so it's absolutely professional." - https://twitter.com/wokal_distance/status/149022042327069900... (thread ties the Rogan hatcheting to a Super PAC)

"This is not organic. It's a political hatchet job" - https://twitter.com/esaagar/status/1490773485056057344 (this one credits @wokal_distance)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Klein#Address_to_the_...

[1] "Zealot ... means one who is zealous on behalf of God" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zealots

[2] "A charlatan is a trickster or con artist" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlatan_(disambiguation)

[devwastaken]

A free market, though it does not exist, includes companies censoring anything and everything. The idea that consumers can't tell a business what to do is yet more fascism via capitalism.

[throwawaysea]

It’s not that a consumer can’t tell a business something - I would not advocate for that either. It’s that some people are preventing competing political voices from being heard. It’s that people with power (like Young) want to use their power to shut down others. I am not sure what you mean by “fascism via capitalism” but I don’t think the word “fascist” holds much meaning anyways, and hasn’t for a long time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascist_(insult)