On Friday, at least 70 episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience disappeared from Spotify. The deletion of his content comes amid controversy surrounding the guests that he hosts.
Insider reported that many of the episodes taken down featured right-wing commentators. Insider also noted that some episodes featuring left-wing commentators like Amy Schumer and Kyle Kulinski were also removed.
Spotify at this time has not commented on whether or not the removal of these episodes is related to the recent controversy, however, it would seem highly probable and even blatantly obvious that this is the case.
The missing episodes were first reported by a fan-run website called JREMissing. The website is apparently dedicated to reporting JRE episodes that go missing from Spotify
The controversy was first sparked when Rogan hosted infamous virologist Robert Malone. Oddly, Insider describes Malone as an “anti-vaxxer” despite having devoted his career to vaccine research. Malone is a highly credentialed doctor who owns at least 9 patents related to mRNA vaccine technology.
Malone however, is skeptical specifically of the COVID-19 vaccine. When Malone went public with his viewpoints he was ostracized by the scientific community. Rogan said that Malone had an opinion that was not mainstream, and he wanted to hear it.
This seems to be how Joe Rogan rolls. He brings people on his podcast who have a viewpoint that is not “mainstream” or is uncommon, hoping to have an interesting conversation.