Almost a month after riding the cancel culture freight train, Neil Young has admitted to using misinformation in his January ultimatum to Spotify.
The 60s rocker shot back into the headlines last month demanding the streaming service either cancel its exclusive contract with Joe Rogan or remove Young’s music.
Young issued the ultimatum after reading about an open letter in The Guardian and Rolling Stone accusing Spotify of ‘broadcasting false and societally harmful assertions.’
At least two reliable sources reported a recent update from Young, alleging that The Guardian and Rolling Stone had misled him, by asserting that all 260+ contributors to the open letter were doctors.
They weren’t.
The letter was signed by a ragtag mix of social scientists, podcast hosts, and medical students.
Signatories included three social workers, three psychiatrists, 79 professors, 218 nurses, 19 respiratory therapists, 10 speech pathologists, three writers, five psychologists and a number of physicians.
All of whom accuse Joe Rogan of being medically irresponsible for ‘promoting Ivermectin’ and hosting counter-COVID narrative rebels, Dr. Robert Malone and Dr. Peter McCollough.
In a now-deleted update posted to the Neil Young Archives, Young wrote:
“The letter that prompted me to act on Spotify was written by 270 medical professionals, not doctors. I erroneously said they were doctors after having read disinformation on the internet.”
Young added:
“About a third of them were doctors. But many of the rest were nurses and hospital assistants.”
He then said:
“I still support them. My mistake was calling them all doctors. I read and usually believe The Guardian and The Guardian made a rare mistake.”
Young exclaimed: “I was misinformed too!”
Guitar magazine said Young’s wording in the ultimatum was based on the Guardian’s original headline which, according to a UK music news site, read: “Menace to public health: 270 doctors criticise Spotify over Joe Rogan’s podcast.”
Rolling Stone ran with: “A menace to public health: Doctors demand Spotify puts an end to COVID Lies on Joe Rogan Experience”.
Young has since deleted the post admitting he was misled by legacy media’s COVID disinformation crusaders, along with the original post criticising Rogan.
He hasn’t retracted defamatory remarks made against Spotify, or adjusted misinformation of his own.
In another article, Young accused the company and its CEO of profiting from selling lies. He also labelled Spotify a “very damaging force via its public disinformation and lies about COVID.”
Additionally, despite Guitar magazine saying he has since “clarified his previous erroneous statement.”
Young hasn’t deleted, or updated assertions he now admits were false.
The January 26 article still contains misinformation about the anti-Rogan open letter which triggered Young’s ultimatum:
“I first learned of this problem by reading that 200 plus doctors had joined forces, taking on the dangerous life-threatening COVID falsehoods found in SPOTIFY programming.”
Young’s alleged passion for “free speech” and concern about disinformation appears to be one-sided.
Buoyed by the front-page attention, Young is now conflating a very successful public relations manoeuvre against Spotify with catastrophising about the climate.
Such is the expected trajectory of leftists, as they seek to shift “COVID crisis” authoritarianism into “Climate crisis” Communism.
The battle over who can say what about COVID-19 will inevitably shift to a battle over who can say what about so-called “catastrophic climate change.”
In a February 7 piece, the musician name-drops “Climate Chaos.”
Young told boomers to lead the way by joining him in a boycott of American banks who “fund fossil fuels.”
Two things stand out.
He and his generation are the establishment.
The millionaire boomer even admits this by reasoning that baby boomers hold ‘70% of assets in the United States, [and therefore] have the power to change the world.’
This “down with the establishment” nostalgic trip back to the 60s makes Young seem old, opportunistic, out of date and confused.
Second, it all suggests Young has used Joe Rogan’s massive popularity to reignite his own.
Pushing Rogan down in order to pull himself up, has paid off. The musician’s virtue signalling ultimatum has been a public relations boon for the aging boomer.
As Variety outlined:
“Prior to Young first making noise about wanting off Spotify on Jan. 24, his daily on-demand streams in both audio and visual formats were tallying somewhere between a low of 550,000 and a high of 715,000, usually reliably landing in the 600,000s each day.
“The day after news of his ultimatum to Spotify broke, his total streams rose dramatically from 619,000 to 860,000, and the day after that, sharply again to 1,005,000.”
This all begs the question. Who has the most to gain from catastrophising about climate change and hyping up the COVID-19 crisis?
Is it Spotify, Rogan, or Young?
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