To show her support for Neil Young’s boycott of Spotify for hosting a program featuring a person who has disseminated disinformation about the coronavirus, Joni Mitchell said Friday that she intends to do the same.
The first well-known performer to join Young’s project is singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, whose career peaked in the 1970s in her native California.
According to a statement she made on her website on Friday, “Irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives,” she continued. “I stand in solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical communities on this issue.”
More than 20,000 audio episodes relating to COVID-19 have been pulled from Spotify since the beginning of the outbreak after Young’s action this week.
However, the service has made no mention of comedian Joe Rogan, the focus of the issue with his podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience.” An infectious disease expert, Dr. Robert Malone, who was banned from Twitter for propagating false information about COVID, was interviewed by Rogan last month for his show.
A deal that might pay him over $100 million makes Rogan one of the most well-known faces on the streaming service.
Following his action, Young had enlisted the help of other artists. Despite the fact that Mitchell, 78, is no longer a pop star, her Spotify page said that she had approximately 3.7 million monthly listeners. More than a hundred million people have listened to her songs, “Big Yellow Taxi” and “A Case of You.”
“When I left Spotify, I felt better,” Young stated in a statement posted on his website Friday.
“Private companies have the right to choose what they profit from, just as I can choose not to have my music support a platform that disseminates harmful information,” he wrote. “I am happy and proud to stand in solidarity with the front line health care workers who risk their lives every day to help others.”
Spotify did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
