This article has been updated to accurately reflect the situation surrounding the recent Spotify debacle concerning The Joe Rogan Experience.
Joe Rogan hosts the most popular podcast in the world, The Joe Rogan Experience, and a big reason for its fame is his willingness to bring on and talk to people from all walks of life and backgrounds.
And for a long time, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been a perennial favorite guest among Joe Rogan listeners. His second appearance on Rogan’s show was aptly described as “The Godfather of podcasts” by British actor Russell Brand.
Unfortunately, since Rogan’s move to Spotify, the new platform hasn’t been quite as thrilled with the Alex Jones episodes. In fact, all of Alex Jones’ previous appearances on the podcast have been scrubbed from the Spotify library so far.
So when Alex Jones appeared along with comedian Tim Dillon on yesterday’s episode, it was met with resounding celebration and cheer among most netizens. Love or hate Alex Jones, it’s always a good thing thing when censorship is curbed in favor of freewheeling conversations like the ones he inspires.
However, the celebration was short-lived for some, as several users already noticed the recent Alex Jones episode was missing from their Spotify lineup, before many fans even got a chance to listen to it.
The apparent sudden removal of the Alex Jones episode appeared to be a blow to Spotify’s reputation, as both the company and Joe Rogan have assured the public that Spotify will not and does not censor Rogan’s show or make any editorial decisions about the content of the podcast.
A lot of speculation went into what could have prompted the episode’s removal. Could it be due to the fact Jones and Rogan discussed the infamous laptop allegedly belong to Hunter Biden which purportedly contains inappropriate videos involving minors and potentially shady deals with overseas companies based in China and the Ukraine? The latter of which has been corroborated from Biden’s ex-business partner Tony Bobulinksi.
Or was it Jones’ mention of an international development plan published in 2010 that included a pandemic scenario eerily similar to the coronavirus situation in 2020 that triggered Spotify employees? Or his use of a Richard Nixon quote that included a slur? Or just the fact that he’s Alex Jones?
Well, it turns out the answer is: none of the above. Joe Rogan took to Instagram to clear up any misunderstanding.
“The conspiracy about the show with the conspiracy theorist…
The episode that was uploaded to Spotify had some cache issues, and it wasn’t working correctly on some devices so the engineers had Jamie re-upload it with the same date, thinking it would fix the problem but still play for everyone like it was never missing. Didn’t quite work out perfect, which led to my phone getting hit up by people thinking it was removed. It works for me now, but some folks are still having trouble seeing it. They’re working on it.” Rogan posted, adding that, “It IS however f***ing classic and amazing that this glitch only shows up in the Alex Jones episode.”
So there you have it. No censorship, at least not today.
The episode is also still available on other platforms such as YouTube and Apple Podcasts.
Note: The previous published version of this article did not include Joe Rogan’s explanation of the episode in question’s sudden removal from Spotify. We apologize for any confusion or misunderstanding this may have caused.
