Since many on the left have called on Spotify to remove Joe Rogan’s podcast from its lineup, it is worth noting that the podcasts of convicted criminals and alleged racists are still up.
Rogan has faced criticism on the left for allegedly spreading “misinformation” about COVID-19. Earlier in the week, Newsbusters reported that several songs on Spotify contained obscene material that included various uses of the N-word, while Rogan was singled out after he quoted someone who used the word.
Fox Business reported that Spotify “rarely censors content” and first pointed out that Louis Farrakhan’s podcast was still listed on the platform, despite the fact that he is notorious for his anti-Semitic comments. Gary Glitter, a convicted pedophile and glam rock singer, also had his podcast present, as well as that of R. Kelly, who was found guilty of sex trafficking, kidnapping, and more.
Social media platforms have taken various stances on Farrakhan over the years.
Farrakhan, the founder of the Nation of Islam, once said: “You know what they do: call me an anti-Semite. Stop it. I’m anti-termite,” and chanted later “Death to America” in his to Iran.
He also once said Jews were “the synagogue of Satan.”
"You are wicked deceivers of the American people," Farrakhan said at the time. "You have sucked their blood. You are not real Jews, those of that are not real Jews. You are the synagogue of Satan, and you have wrapped your tentacles around the U.S. government, and you are deceiving and sending the nation to hell."
Twitter said his anti-Semitic language was not “dehumanizing language.” He was later temporarily banned from Twitter in 2020, although the platform attributed the ban to a “spam filter error.”
Facebook and Instagram, however, banned him for his comments. “We’ve always banned individuals or organizations that promote or engage in violence and hate, regardless of ideology," the platform said at the time.
YouTube removed Farrakhan’s account in 2020. “After updating our guidelines last year to better address content that spreads hateful conspiracy theories, we saw a 5x spike in video removals and have terminated over 25,000 channels for violating our hate speech policies,” YouTube said at the time in a statement to The Verge. The platform added that it has“strict” rules governing hate speech and will terminate any channels that “repeatedly or egregiously” violate them.
Notably, some of Farrakhan's anti-Semitic comments from past speeches were still listed on Spotify.
Farrakhan had ties to several prominent Democrats, including former President Barack Obama.
