Joni Mitchell pulls her music off Spotify ‘In Solidarity With Neil Young’

Following up on Neil Young earlier this week, Joni Mitchell announced Friday that she intends to pull her music from Spotify to protest the platform’s support of people spreading misinformation and “lies” about the COVID-19 vaccine.

“I have decided to remove all my music from Spotify. Irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives. I stand in solidarity with Neil Young and the global medical and scientific community on this issue,” Mitchell said in a statement posted. to her official website.

Mitchell did not name podcast superstar Joe Rogan, but Neil Young specifically cited Rogan’s frequent promotion of misinformation about vaccines and COVID-19 as the reason he pulled his music from the service. streaming online.

“I am doing this because Spotify is spreading vaccine disinformation – potentially fatal to people who believe the misinformation is being spread by them. Take action immediately today and keep me informed of the time schedule,” Young wrote Monday.

“They can have Rogan or Young. Not both,” he continued.

Like Young, Mitchell is a polio survivor; both contracted the disease during the last major disease outbreak in Canada in 1952. That same year, the first effective vaccine against polio was developed at the University of Pittsburg by a team led by Jonas Salk is at the top.

Of course Young (and implied, Mitchell) isn’t the only one calling out Rogan’s podcast to falsify vaccine information. Earlier this month, more than 260 scientists, medical professionals, professors and science communicators signed an open letter calling on Spotify to take action against “mass media events” on its platform, especially Rogan.

The team of scientists showed how Rogan repeatedly spreads false and untrue claims on his podcast, from discouraging vaccination among young people to promoting the use of ivermectin to regulate treat COVID-19. Read the letter here.

A Spotify representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment from TheWrap.

More to come…