Spotify has officially begun removing Neil Young’s music from its platform at his request after he asked the company to choose between him and controversial podcast host Joe Rogan, The New York Times reports. “I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines — potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them,” Young wrote in a since-deleted open letter on his Neil Young Archives website. “They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.”

“Thank you WARNER BROTHERS for standing with me and taking the hit — losing 60% of my world wide streaming income in the name of Truth,” Young added in another statement published today. “SPOTIFY has become the home of life threatening COVID misinformation. Lies being sold for money … I sincerely hope that other artists and record companies will move off the SPOTIFY platform and stop supporting SPOTIFY’s deadly misinformation about COVID.”

Hundreds of scientists, public health professionals, and educators recently signed an open letter urging Spotify to take down an episode of Joe Rogan’s show and implement a COVID misinformation policy. In 2020, Rogan signed an exclusive podcast deal with the company that was reported to be worth $100 million, and his show, The Joe Rogan Experience, is the most popular podcast on the platform.

“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,” Spotify said in a statement today. “We have detailed content policies in place and we’ve removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to Covid since the start of the pandemic. We regret Neil’s decision to remove his music from Spotify but hope to welcome him back soon.”

This isn’t the first time that Spotify has defended Rogan. “We want creators to create,” Spotify CEO Daniel Ek told The Financial Times after Joe Rogan featured conspiracy nutjob Alex Jones on his show in 2020. “It’s what they do best. We’re not looking to play a role in what they should say.” It’s not the first time that Young has removed his music from the platform either — he briefly pulled his catalog in 2015 after complaining about the sound quality on streaming. Read Young’s full statement about the latest removal of his music below.

SPOTIFY has recently become a very damaging force via its public misinformation and lies about COVID.

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.

Most of the listeners hearing the unfactual, misleading and false COVID information on SPOTIFY are 24 years old, impressionable and easy to swing to the wrong side of the truth.

These young people believe SPOTIFY would never present grossly unfactual information. They unfortunately are wrong. I knew I had to try to point that out.

All my music is available on SPOTIFY, being sold to these young people, people who believe what they are hearing because it is on SPOTIFY, and people like me are supporting SPOTIFY by presenting my music there.

I realized I could not continue to support SPOTIFY’s life threatening misinformation to the music loving public.

Before I told my friends at Warner Bros about my desire to leave the SPOTIFY platform, I was reminded by my own legal forces that contractually I did not have the control of my music to do that. I announced I was leaving anyway, because I knew I was. I was prepared to do all I could and more just to make sure that happened.

I want to thank my truly great and supportive record company Warner Brothers – Reprise Records, for standing with me in my decision to pull all my music from Spotify. Thank You!

Spotify represents 60% of the streaming of my music to listeners around the world, almost every record I have ever released is available – my life’s music – a huge loss for my record company to absorb. Yet my friends at WARNER BROTHERS REPRISE stood with me, recognizing the threat the COVID misinformation on SPOTIFY posed to the world – particularly for our young people who think everything they hear on SPOTIFY is true. Unfortunately it is not.

Thank you WARNER BROTHERS for standing with me and taking the hit – losing 60% of my world wide streaming income in the name of Truth.

SPOTIFY has become the home of life threatening COVID misinformation. Lies being sold for money.

There is an upside for my listeners, people who may be listening to the 60 years of music I have made in my life so far. It is this: many other platforms, Amazon, Apple, and Qobuz, to name a few, present my music today in all its High-Resolution glory – the way it is intended to be heard, while unfortunately SPOTIFY continues to peddle the lowest quality in music reproduction. So much for art. But now that is in the past for me. Soon my music will live on in a better place.

I truly want to thank the many, many people who have reached out to me thanking me for taking this position – people who are health professionals on the front lines, people who have lost loved ones to COVID or who are worried for their own children and families. I have never felt so much love coming from so many.

I sincerely hope that other artists and record companies will move off the SPOTIFY platform and stop supporting SPOTIFY’s deadly misinformation about COVID.

In the name of Truth.

neil young