Blabbermouth — Sebastian Bach has thrown shade at DISTURBED singer David Draiman for praising Spotify‘s announcement that it would remove Neil Young‘s music two days after Young demanded that his catalog be taken off in response to “fake information about vaccines” being “spread” on the platform via Joe Rogan‘s podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience”.
In a now-deleted post on his web site, Young said the music and podcast platform is “spreading fake information about vaccines — potentially causing death to those who believe this disinformation spread by them.” “I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform,” he wrote, according to Rolling Stone. “They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.”
On Wednesday (January 26), a Spotify spokesperson confirmed that Young‘s music was being removed from the platform, saying: “We want all the world’s music and audio content to be available to Spotify users. With that comes great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom for creators. We have detailed content policies in place and we’ve removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. We regret Neil‘s decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon.”
A short time later, Draiman weighed in on Spotify‘s move, tagging the company’s chief executive Daniel Ek on Twitter and writing: “@eldsjal I applaud you and @Spotify for making the RIGHT call, preserving #FreeSpeech and not capitulating to the mob. I may not agree with everything @joerogan or his guests say, but they’re entitled to have the forum to say it.”
David later clarified his stance, writing: “Let me be clear. I do not support ANY artist blackmailing any entity to follow an agenda THEY believe in, wether it’s @Neilyoung one one side of the spectrum or @EricClapton on the other. Music shouldn’t be used to sow division. It should be used to bring people together IMHO”.
Earlier today, Bach took to his Twitter to write: “Imagine calling yourself a rocker yet siding with some dude who has a podcast over @Neilyoung You can stick to listening to your podcast and I will stick to listening to Neil Young“.
Sebastian previously chimed in on Neil‘s request in a tweet earlier in the week. He wrote at the time: “Misinformation about the vaccines is everybody’s problem. Neil Young is doing this because he wants rock and roll to exist and his fans to live. This other guy is a complete jackass who doesn’t give a shit about anybody or anything except himself”.
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