Singers David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash returned to Spotify months after pulling their music from the streaming platform in protest over comments by podcaster Joe Rogan.
The folk-rock band's music returned to Spotify on Saturday, according to Billboard which cited a source as saying that the group will donate proceeds to COVID-19 charities for at least a month.
Earlier this year the group denounced Rogan after he came under fire for controversial comments he and some guests on his podcasts made about COVID-19. Neil Young pulled his music from Spotify in an attempt to pressure Spotify from de-platforming Rogan, and several musicians followed suit, including Crosby, Stills and Nash.
"We support Neil and we agree with him that there is dangerous disinformation being aired on Spotify’s Joe Rogan podcast," the group said in a joint statement posted to their official Twitter account in February.
"While we always value alternate points of view, knowingly spreading disinformation during this global pandemic has deadly consequences. Until real action is taken to show that a concern for humanity must be balanced with commerce, we don’t want our music — or the music we made together — to be on the same platform."
Spotify responded by adding a content advisory to all podcast episodes that include discussions of COVID-19. The streaming platform's CEO, Daniel Ek, also addressed the controversy in February, saying that the company is "trying to balance creative expression with the safety of our users."
"Of course, this is a very complicated issue," Ek said at the time, according to CNN. "But I'm really proud of the steps that we took following the concerns raised by the medical and scientific communities."
Ek further said that Spotify does not "change our policies based on one creator nor do we change it based on any media cycle or calls from anyone else."
"While Joe has a massive audience ... he also has to abide by those policies," he added.
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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