Jon Stewart addressed Neil Young’s self-removal from Spotify in protest of Joe Rogan on his Apple podcast The Problem With Jon Stewart yesterday.

Young and a flurry of peers such as Joni Mitchell and his CSNY bandmates have removed their music from Spotify as a stand against Rogan, whose show is exclusive to Spotify, and who has been criticized for giving a platform to (and either implicitly or explicitly endorsing) misinformation about COVID-19. In conversation with cohosts Chelsea Devantez and Jay Jurden, Stewart argued that Young was overreacting to Rogan, who Stewart believes is not an ideologue or a bad player like Fox News host Tucker Carlson but rather is engaging in real dialogue. “This overreaction to Rogan I think is a mistake,” Stewart said.

Stewart pointed to an instance of Rogan arguing with a doctor over the risks of vaccines for children compared to the risk of COVID, then looking up statistics live to sort out the issue, something Stewart said would never happen on Carlson’s show. He also criticized the popular idea of “de-platforming” people whose beliefs or ideas you find disreputable. Explaining why he’ll interview someone like disgraced former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, he said he has family members to the right of O’Reilly and he still speaks to them.

An excerpt from Stewart’s show:

You have to engage. How do you not engage with people? The whole point of engagement is hopefully clarification. Now, you may not get it. It may be a fool’s errand. But I will never give up on engagement. And by the way, I am more worried about the algorithm of misinformation than the purveyor of misinformation… the fucking algorithm is the amplifier and the catalyst of extremism.

Stewart also jokingly suggested that Taylor Swift has spread misinformation by suggesting that Jake Gyllenhaal still has her scarf (a reference to “All Too Well” and whatnot), and he said stans of BTS and One Direction are far scarier than any online political mob. Watch the chat below.