Joe Rogan podcast vanishes from Spotify

The Joe Rogan Experience disappeared from Spotify on Monday morning, with users unable to access it from the streaming giant’s website, iPhone app and Android app.

It is not clear why the hugely popular podcast was down, though it comes amid controversy surrounding Spotify’s flagship show.

The show also briefly disappeared on Friday, with Spotify blaming technical issues.

The Independent has contacted Spotify for more information on the latest outage.

The online streaming service secured exclusive rights to Rogan’s podcast last year in a deal reported to be worth more than $100 million.

Several high profile artists recently pulled their music from Spotify, including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, in protest to the “deadly misinformation about Covid” discussed on The Joe Rogan Experience.

“Spotify represents 60 per cent of the streaming of my music to listeners around the world,” Young declared on his website.

“Yet my [record label] stood with me, recognising the threat the Covid misinformation on Spotify posed to the world — particularly for our young people who think everything they hear on Spotify is true. Unfortunately it is not.”

Rogan also faced criticism for the use of racially insensitive language in old episodes, leading to the removal of more than 70 episodes from Spotify.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek defended the platform’s decision to continue hosting the JRE podcast in a letter to employees earlier this month, claiming that “cancelling voices is a slippery slope”.

Mr Ek wrote: “We’ve had conversations with Joe and his team about some of the content in his show, including his history of using some racially insensitive language. Following these discussions and his own reflections, he chose to remove a number of episodes from Spotify.

“While I strongly condemn what Joe has said, and I agree with his decision to remove past episodes from our platform, I realize some will want more. And I want to make one point very clear – I do not believe that silencing Joe is the answer.”

More to follow.