Judging Freedom - Spotify - Keep Joe Rogan Free to Speak His Mind

Episode Date: February 2, 2022

Joe Rogan is no one's enemy. His voice, his show deserves to be heard by anyone who wants to listen. #joerogan #freeespeech #deplatform #woke #spoptify #neilyoungSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello there everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here with Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, February 1st, 2022. It's about 1.30 in the afternoon on the East Coast. Some of you have commented that I have really bright lights on my face. It's the snow outside and the sun reflecting off the snow, an issue which we will have resolved. We can't change the sun or the snow, of course. An issue we'll have resolved in a few days. The joys and the discomforts of a home studio. I want to talk to you today about my friend Joe Rogan, who, of course, is the king, and rightly so, of all podcasters who practically created the industry

and is at the top of his game. And if you are interested in the best interviewer in all of the media, you should listen to Joe. But Joe's in a little bit of a spot right now. He is on Spotify, and he's paid handsomely by Spotify. And those of you that subscribe to Spotify pay for their various platforms and services. Some superstar musicians whose material is also on Spotify have basically said, silence Joe or take my music off your platform. Neil Young is the most prominent of these guys and a bunch of others are doing the same. So what does Spotify do? Well, first of all, this is not a question of free speech. I know it

sounds like it's a question of free speech, but it's not. Because freedom of speech only comes into play when the government is involved. And the government, thanks be to God, is not involved here. The First Amendment guarantees your natural right to speak freely against government interference. It does not guarantee your right to speak freely on anybody's platform. So if Facebook or Google want to de-platform Donald Trump or Twitter wants to de-platform Donald Trump, as repellent as that is, as antithetical as it is to their supposed platforms of free speech, they can do so. And if Spotify wants to say to Neil Young, okay, we make more money from Joe than we do from you, they can do so. But they probably should find some middle ground. I mean, my heart goes out to Joe. Joe's not an opinion guy. Well, we sort of know what his opinion is, but he's basically an interviewer. It is people objecting not to Joe, not to his program, not to what he says, but to what his guests say. You know, in the old days, they used to say, if you don't like what's on a particular channel, change the channel,

press the remote control. Of course, the technology is different today. My opinion, Joe is the biggest investor there is, and he should be able to interview anybody he wants and have that person say whatever they want. But that's just my opinion. I'm not a shareholder or a principal in management of Spotify. They will have a serious issue on their hands if they start losing platforms. Now, they are not paid by advertising. They're paid by subscriptions. I doubt that those of you that subscribe to Spotify will drop it because it dropped Neil Young or because it's trying to work something out with Joe. If you do, if people cancel their subscriptions and it's a large number of people, then Spotify has an issue. So Spotify, if you're listening to me, hire me.

I'm kidding. Keep Joe Rogan and keep him free to interview whoever he wants and to extract whatever information he wants from his guests. That's what's made him so great. And that's what's made podcasts so fascinating. And of course, keep watching Judging Freedom. Subscribe to Judging Freedom. Get the notifications so you can catch these pop-ups whenever I do them. Judge Napolitano, Judging Freedom.