No evidence Barbra Streisand said she'd remove music from Spotify 'if it doesn't deplatform Joe Rogan'
No evidence Barbra Streisand said she'd remove music from Spotify 'if it doesn't deplatform Joe
(Reuters) - Online claims that singer Barbra Streisand said she’d remove her music from Spotify if the company failed to deplatform U.S. podcaster Joe Rogan “immediately” are unsupported.
“Breaking news Barbara (sic) Streisand threatens to remove music from Spotify if it doesn t deplatform Joe Rogan immediately,” reads a tweet from Feb. 3 that has garnered at least 7,253 retweets ( here ).
“It amazes me how many musicians of all people are demanding censorship,” a Facebook user commented. “The amount of ‘Irrelevant Has Beens’ looking for 15 more minutes of fame is sad at this point,” another one wrote.
A representative for Streisand told Reuters the allegation is false.
Reuters found no evidence that Streisand made such a statement. A review of her social media profiles on Twitter ( here ), Facebook ( here ) and Instagram ( here ) as well as her official website ( barbrastreisand.com/home/ ) brought no relevant results.
As of Feb. 4, Streisand’s music is still available on Spotify ( here ).
Some users sharing the claim reference the so-called “Streisand effect” ( here ) ( here ), which is a “phenomenon whereby the attempt to suppress something only brings more attention or notoriety to it,” as explained by Merriam-Dictionary. The name of the phenomenon traces back to 2003, when the singer sued a photographer over a picture of her Malibu beach house; the lawsuit subsequently brought more attention to the image she wanted removed from the internet. ( www.bbc.com/news/uk-18458567 )
The unsupported allegation follows the decision by artists Neil Young and Joni Mitchell to pull their music from Spotify in protest over the views about COVID-19 in Rogan’s podcasts.
On Feb. 1 Spotify said it would add a content advisory to any episode with discussion of COVID to try to quell the controversy, a first step into the field of content moderation that other tech platforms have found challenging and costly.
Rogan’s show, The Joe Rogan Experience, has been the most listened-to podcast on Spotify and is central to its plan to expand beyond music and take on rivals such as Apple and Amazon.com for a share of the podcasting market.
VERDICT
False. Barbra Streisand did not say she’d remove her music from Spotify if the platform did not eliminate Joe Rogan’s content. Her music is still available on Spotify. A representative for Streisand told Reuters the allegation is false.
