Spotify COVID-19 Misinformation Row: Roxane Gay Removes Her Podcast From the Platform

Roxane Gay, the host of ‘The Roxane Gay Agenda’ podcast, has removed her show from Spotify amid a growing number of celebrity departures from the audio streaming platform recently.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, the podcast — which premiered in late January — is not available on Spotify but can still be streamed on Apple Podcasts or the Luminary app.

«It won’t move any sort of needle but I removed my podcast from Spotify,» the ‘Bad Feminist’ author tweeted.

She added, «That’s all there really is to say about that. Onward.»

Roxane’s departure comes after India Arie, a musician and podcaster said she would be pulling her podcast ‘SongVersation’ from Spotify in protest of Joe Rogan’s comments on his podcast that it would be «weird» to call Black people «black» unless they were «100 percent African, from the darkest place, where they’re not wearing any clothes all day.»

As for other podcasters, Brene Brown, who has two exclusive podcasts with Spotify, announced last week that she would be pausing the release of any future episodes of ‘Unlocking Us’ and ‘Dare to Lead’.

In a message posted on her personal website, Brown elaborated on her decision and called on Spotify to «have a transparent misinformation policy (made available to the public) that balances addressing the complex misinformation issues we face today while respecting free speech» that was applied across the platform.

Recently, many musicians have also had their songs removed from Spotify in protest of Rogan’s content. Graham Nash, Neil Young, and Joni Mitchell are some of these celebrities.