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Spotify CEO Daniel Ek
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Because the criticism of US podcast Joe Rogan continues and allegations of racism have been added, Spotify boss Daniel Ek wrote a letter to his employees.
The magazine The Hollywood Reporter published the letter.
He "strongly condemns" Joe Rogan's use of the N-word and other derogatory comments about black people, Ek said.
But he's sticking to his decision to keep the podcaster on the platform because he wants to promote "all kinds of creators."
The controversy surrounding Joe Rogan was initially about misinformation about the corona virus.
The musicians Neil Young and Joni Mitchell had therefore left the streaming platform Spotify, on which Rogan publishes his podcasts.
Then a video montage emerged from the last few years proving that Joe Rogan used the N-word and had repeatedly made derogatory remarks about black people.
US singer India Arie joined the boycott and removed her music from Spotify.
Ek wrote in his letter that Rogan's comments were "incredibly hurtful" and confirmed that Rogan had decided to remove several previous episodes from Spotify.
However, Ek rejected further consequences.
"I want to make one point very clear - I don't think silencing Joe is the solution," Ek said.
"We should have clear boundaries for content and take action when they're crossed, but deleting votes is a slippery slope."
According to the JRE Missing website, 71 episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience were removed from Spotify last Friday.
»JRE Missing« tracks which podcast episodes are missing from the streaming platform.
A total of 113 episodes are therefore currently unavailable.
In his letter to employees, Ek said he wants to allocate an additional $100 million to license, develop and market music and audio content from historically marginalized groups.
cpa