More than 270 medical experts call out Spotify, Joe Rogan for spreading COVID-19 misinformation

theSeb said:
Yes, but, like I have been telling people, I would love to go for a beer with Borris. It would be a crazy night and we would probably stumble out of a casino at 8 am the next morning, blinking at the sunshine with sheepish grins. (Casinos in London are one of the few places where one can purchase drinks after about 3 am on a weeknight). That does not mean I trust him to run a country. If you want to put people in charge based on that criteria, then you have a serious fucking problem.

As for this whole Spotify and JR shit,I’ll repost what I posted elsewhere. i do recommend perusing through the related article and 1000+ comments on arstechnics, to see typical JR fans and what they believe.

..context blah blah.
However, considering that around 800,000 people are dead in the US because of a pandemic, it is not responsible to spread misinformation that can cause further suffering and deaths. Likewise, he spreads climate change misinformation. Data shows us heading straight into a climate disaster that will have consequences far beyond this pandemic.

It is one thing to have opinions on things, whether they are based on facts, or on unicorns and make-believe. But it is another when you are a public figure with such a reach and influence. It is irresponsible to spread your agenda based on your opinions, especially when your message reaches millions of people.

Whether he does this for the ratings and the popularity, since this is an easy train to hop onboard in our modern world, I am not sure. But it does not really matter and, either way, I think "irresponsible" does not really convey the gravity of the situation. I think "criminal" would be more apt.
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There seems to be a high percentage of people on the right who don't want people smarter than them running things. They want people are just as dumb as they are, at minimum. Dumb is folksy. Smart is elitist.

Honestly I think all this noise is just going to end with Joe having even more listeners. People are going to check it out just to look into the controversy. I also think corrupt corporatist media has a vendetta against independent news or content creators who are a lot more successful than they are. There's a good chance we wouldn't even know about this if that vendetta wasn't there. I think it's going to backfire and bring Joe even more success.
 
Chew Toy McCoy said:
No he didn't and even CNN's expert medical reporter admitted under pressure that, that was a lie on their part.

But in the spirit of this topic, and if we are going to be completely honest, it's about the danger of spreading general information that can easily, and most likely, be mistranslated into something that is completely wrong. I agree that is a major issue that should be avoided. If there's a good chance that people are going to go the wrong route with limited detailed knowledge then don't put it out there.

My only question is, there are probably all kinds of medications that have human versions and veterinary versions. Which side was pushing the veterinary version on this one? Was it the right out of lazy ignorance or the left trying to make them look like idiots? I'm not saying I have the answer.

...but I know that probably isn't the point of this thread and there may not be room for this kind of conversation here.
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Would love to know why this post was labeled as containing false information?


P_X said:
I'm all on board for criticism, but these are topics that were discussed and eviscerated a gazillion times and the only thing that keeps them alive is people profiting financially or politically from perpetuating them.

So when Joe Rogan is told he's a dumb fuck and knows nothing about myocarditis but goes on about it, it's no longer about open discourse it's about propaganda.
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Want to know what else is dumb as fuck? CNN spouting that Joe Rogan was taking horse dewormer when they clearly should have known it wasn't true. Even Sanjay Gupta, their own medical expert, said they shouldn't have said that.

Want to know why it was dumb? Because all CNN wanted to do was make Rogan look dumb as opposed to explaining to its viewers why it wasn't effective. So all they did was give Joe Rogan a talking point. Probably not a good idea when his podcast has more listeners that you have viewers.
 
Herdfan said:
Want to know what else is dumb as fuck?
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There's something seriously wrong about your value system. You are trying to place unnecessary banter about an actual antihelmintic agent on the same level of concern as promoting ineffective treatments for a serious endemic disease as an alternative of extremely effective prophylactic measures.

This scratches the bottom of my expectations, even from you.
 
My theory is that the record label went along with Young in pulling his songs from Spotify figuring it would increase his name in the public consciousness and drive more clicks on the other platforms. When the drama calms down I’m sure he (or the label, more accurately) will be back on Spotify. I’m sure the label, a business, will not sacrifice 60% of their streams in the long run.

I’ve watched bits and pieces of Rogan. He has interviewed some quite interesting and prominent people, including experts all sorts of random topics. Admittedly I have not watched the Malone interview other than a few clips.

When it comes to COVID, I think Rogan is wrong on a quite a lot of stuff- including ivermectin, young/healthy people avoiding vaccines, a fair amount pseudoscience around means of so called “boosting” you’re immune system, etc. Basically objectively wrong stuff. But I also sense people are upset, if not more so, with him asking uncomfortable questions that have murky answers or bringing up information that may contradict current policy.

Here’s the deal- do I like misleading, misinterpreted, false, etc medical information being spread around? No, absolutely not- and I’ve seen the personal consequences of medical misinformation for years. You can go on google and find page after page of absolute hocus pocus BS. And if you want to talk about people with “platforms”, how about Dr. Oz pushing snake oils for years, Oprah having a long career dabbling with junk science, etc. Or even Chris Cuomo’s wife’s blog or whatever on various forms of hocus pocus and bleach baths for COVID prevention?

There are also people in the media who are furious about Rogan who have mislead the public by exaggerating things like risk of COVID to children or creating misleading impressions of hospitalizations by not contextualizing people with COVID who are hospitalized vs people hospitalized for COVID. You can argue exaggeration isn’t as bad, but in the end it can be quite damaging.

And here’s my other critique… why do people believe that Joe Rogan should be a/the accepted voice of medical advice? Honestly, it’s the same level of stupidity to treat other celebrities or cable news hosts of the opposite side of the ideological divide to act as some sort of authority on COVID. It’s a ridiculous fallacy to impart wisdom upon someone just because they are famous or rich or sit behind a camera. If people can’t differentiate who are qualified sources of information, I don’t know what to say, it’s a problem.

I think censorship is a very unhealthy thing. And frankly, censoring just encourages people to seek out what is being censored and then they are all the more willing believe conspiracy theories and pseudoscience. It’s better to be able to debate ideas publicly, especially objectively false ones, so more people will hopefully be persuaded to the truth. And let’s be honest, removing this content is not going to magically persuade people who don’t want to be vaccinated to get vaccinated. Even Donald Trump tacitly promoting vaccines in recent times has probably done little to persuade the antivaxxers of his base. The fact he got booed on stage for even mentioning the vaccines in a positive light is amazing.

And the irony about this misinformation petition is that apparently only 87 of the 270 signatories are medical doctors. Keep in mind there’s almost 1 million practicing physicians in the US. (And before someone whines that I’m insinuating Rogan’s false opinions are valid, that’s not the point I’m making)

All of this is just so stupid.
 
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AG_PhamD said:
I think censorship is a very unhealthy thing. And frankly, censoring just encourages people to seek out what is being censored and then they are all the more willing believe conspiracy theories and pseudoscience. It’s better to be able to debate ideas publicly, especially objectively false ones, so more people will hopefully be persuaded to the truth. And let’s be honest, removing this content is not going to magically persuade people who don’t want to be vaccinated to get vaccinated. Even Donald Trump tacitly promoting vaccines in recent times has probably done little to persuade the antivaxxers of his base. The fact he got booed on stage for even mentioning the vaccines in a positive light is amazing.
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Let's not pretend that this whole thing isn't a grift. The common denominator about these showmen is that over the years they sought out the most gullible audiences. People who never do their actual research and don't respect their own time or, their money. These people are really easy to capitalize on and people like JR or JP just do that. This is how you make money off drugs that would be dirt cheap, like HCQ or Ivermectin.

Personally, I know one of the co-authors of Dr Malone's better cited papers, who's a very grounded and reasonable guy.
If I cared, I'd just ask him what he thinks about Malone's claims.


AG_PhamD said:
And the irony about this misinformation petition is that apparently only 87 of the 270 signatories are medical doctors. Keep in mind there’s almost 1 million practicing physicians in the US. (And before someone whines that I’m insinuating Rogan’s false opinions are valid, that’s not the point I’m making)

All of this is just so stupid.
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It's ironic when a PhamD is expecting all 270 people to have MDs. I see 100 PhD/PhD(C)s listed too.
 
JayMysteri0 said:
Neil Young is as good as his word

https://www.Twitter or X not allowed/i/web/status/1486449675217604612/

Of course, when framed like that ☝️, really not the best look for Spotify.
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They don’t care. Rogan is immensely popular and is exclusive to their platform. As it always does, 💰 wins.
 
theSeb said:
I just want to double check I understand the flow of events here...

JR gets COVID
JR takes all kind of "treatments" such as Ivermectin and other. Tweets about it
JR gets better
JR is on CNN and a CNN anchor mentions "horse dewormer" instead of Ivermectin
CNN health guy says on JR podcast that he agrees CNN anchor should not have used the words "horse dewormer"

Is that roughly correct?
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Roughly. Except it wasn't just a "mention" of horse dewormer. They went all in including this:

www.cnn.com

Right-wing media pushed a deworming drug to treat Covid-19 that the FDA says is unsafe for humans

Public health officials are aggressively dispelling claims by right-wing media personalities who have been promoting an anti-parasitic drug used for livestock as a potential Covid-19 treatment.
www.cnn.com www.cnn.com

If the FDA thinks it is unsafe, why did they approve it as a medication? Is the base drug also used for deworming horses? Yes it is. I have also given my cat Pepto Bismol (that was a fun day), so are people now taking cat antacid? Of course not.

Here's a fun fact: All the refugees coming in from Africa are given, wait for it, Ivermectin. Why are we giving refugees horse dewormer?

P_X said:
There's something seriously wrong about your value system. You are trying to place unnecessary banter about an actual antihelmintic agent on the same level of concern as promoting ineffective treatments for a serious endemic disease as an alternative of extremely effective prophylactic measures.

This scratches the bottom of my expectations, even from you.
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Why? Because I think the news media has a responsibility to educate its viewers as opposed to trying to make a podcaster look dumb? Unnecessary banter? Look at the headline I posted. They are all in on misinformation about Ivermectin.
 
Herdfan said:
Would love to know why this post was labeled as containing false information?




Want to know what else is dumb as fuck? CNN spouting that Joe Rogan was taking horse dewormer when they clearly should have known it wasn't true. Even Sanjay Gupta, their own medical expert, said they shouldn't have said that.

Want to know why it was dumb? Because all CNN wanted to do was make Rogan look dumb as opposed to explaining to its viewers why it wasn't effective. So all they did was give Joe Rogan a talking point. Probably not a good idea when his podcast has more listeners that you have viewers.
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CNN doesn't make Joe Rogan look dumb, he does that all on his own. A large part of his audience doesn't care so much about all the COVID stuff, they like that he's a comedian with a show, a lot like Howard Stern hated Trump yet still never lost his supporters. The fact that he smokes weed and touts a lot of leftwing talking points while having the support of people like you and Fox News only bolsters that point.

But when it comes to this issue he's shown himself to be reckless in every way, when he got sick and made all those crazy videos about demanding every alternative treatment under the sun, with the exception of the vaccine, only showed just how fucking stupid the guy actually is.

Enjoy his podcast for a laugh but the guy is a clueless meatball.
 
Herdfan said:
Why? Because I think the news media has a responsibility to educate its viewers as opposed to trying to make a podcaster look dumb?
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Well, this is bold coming from someone who frequently posts and repeats talking points from Fox.
Rogan doesn't need anybody to make him seem dumb.
Herdfan said:
Unnecessary banter? Look at the headline I posted. They are all in on misinformation about Ivermectin.
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You gave yourself away here. When you only read the headlines as you usually do, but you feel entitled to criticize the media for clickbaity headlines, you sorta give up on the moral high ground to demand them to be accurate. But let's do this:

1643377062693.png

Did RW media push ivermectin to treat COVID-19? Yes.
Is it a deworming drug? Yes, it is.
Is it an anti-parasitic drug? Yes it is.
Is it used for livestock? Yes it is. I've only seen it being used as a topical delicer for humans.
Did the FDA say it's unsafe? I don't recall the exact wording, but the FDA generally considers off-label therapies that lack sufficient preliminary evidence to treat a potentially life-threatening are unsafe. They did state there's insufficient evidence. I actually spent 4 hours in the summer to review ALL the supportive evidence for Ivermectin and it was indeed inadequate.
Is it directly toxic for humans? There can be if dosed incorrectly, especially the veterinary formulations (that I suspect have much greater availability).
Are there indirect safety concerns for humans? Definitely when people push it as alternative to evidence-based therapies.
Did public health officials try to aggressively dispel claims from RW talking heads? Definitely.

Anything else?
 
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theSeb said:
He actually says that's he's just a dumb ape whilst utilising the "I am just asking questions" shtick, as popularised by Limbaugh.

I am not sure whether he plays dumb and self-deprecates on purpose, or whether it's a learned mechanism that he has realised works over time, but it's a well known technique to garner support to appear humble and make the speaker more relatable to the listener.
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He doesn't just play dumb...

 
Eric said:
The fact that he smokes weed and touts a lot of leftwing talking points while having the support of people like you and Fox News only bolsters that point.
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TBH, other than seeing one of his comedy specials and possibly hearing him on a random UFC broadcast, I don't listen to him.

But I am pretty sure given his status and wealth, that he didn't take horse dewormer.
 
Herdfan said:
TBH, other than seeing one of his comedy specials and possibly hearing him on a random UFC broadcast, I don't listen to him.

But I am pretty sure given his status and wealth, that he didn't take horse dewormer.
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If nothing else, wealth plays no role in equity when it comes to this virus. The vaccine and horse dewormers can be had by rich or poor alike, it's one of the few things in the world where one's personal choice is not based around money (at least in first world countries). This post doesn't make sense, Herdfan.
 
Herdfan said:
Was it initially developed for use in humans? Yes or no?
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Sweaty attempt to move the goal posts. 99.9% of drugs are developed for humans. Not 99.9% drugs are safe for humans.
By this implied logic, we should just hand out chemotherapy drugs over the counter to everybody.

Now you tell me, which one is much worse? Factually correct clickbaity titles or factually incorrect clickbaity titles?
 
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