The Alex Jones Show podcast was pulled from Spotify way back in 2018 from its platform “for violating our hate policy.”
Despite the move being shadowed by a threatened boycott from Spotify users, the music streaming giant wasn’t alone in its move. Almost in harmony, YouTube and Facebook banned and/or pulled the far-right conspiracy theorist’s content from their platforms for violating community standards.
Now, Jones is causing a ruckus for Spotify again. This time, it’s down to Joe Rogan, despite recently transplanted to Austin while moving to Spotify as part of a reported $100 million deal, inviting Jones onto The Joe Rogan Experience.
The party turned into three hours of Jones spewing theories to millions of Rogan fans. This wasn’t the first time these two had met, of course, although when Rogan first ported over to Spotify, the far-right threw a fit over the Infowars host’s previous visits going missing from the archive. With Jones making an appearance for Rogan, it seems like the far-right is probably happy right now. Here’s a telling visual from comedian Tim Dillon (wearing a “Free Ghislaine” t-shirt in support of Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged madam), who was also in attendance.
The trio chatted about Jones’ anti-vax-and-and-mask stances, and at the very beginning of the below three-hour video, Rogan and Jones both state their belief that Rudy Giuliani was “set up” in Borat 2. Rogan then stated that “nothing happened” while diving into his theory that Giuliani might have a “bad back,” which is why he reclined on the bed while reaching down his pants. What?
Giuliani stuff aside, people are pretty steamed to see Jones, who has remained unrepentant for his harmful Sandy Hook conspiracy theories, receive such a large platform for his misinformation. The backlash has started anew:
Months ago, Jones claimed that he had spoken to Rogan about the missing episodes from his back catalogue on Spotify. However, there’s been no official statement from Spotify on the matter.
As Jones told his audience, those episodes are (according to Rogan, says Jones) staying on YouTube for a strategic reason:
“Here’s the key. Joe Rogan’s favorite 100 episodes of the last 10 years or so will be left on YouTube starting December 31 when he goes exclusively to Spotify. For this couple months no man’s land the content will be on both platforms and will be migrating over. And so that’s why the Alex Jones interview is not there. That’s why some of the other interviews are not there, because those are going to be the exclusive interviews that are left on YouTube where, in Joe’s words, they’ll probably get more views than if they were on Spotify.”
As for whether the new Joe Rogan-Alex Jones meetup will be left to stand on Spotify, only time will tell.
