A couple months after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had voiced concerns about the COVID-19 misinformation being spread via Spotify, their production banner has confirmed that it will go ahead with its deal with the platform.
The couple’s production company Archewell Audio had announced a collaboration with Spotify in 2020, after they had stepped down from their royal duties. As part of the partnership, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are set to produce and host shows on the platform.
Meanwhile, Joe Rogan had released an anti-vaccination episode on his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, on December 31, 2021. The show was heavily criticised and 270 doctors, scientists and healthcare professionals had signed an open letter requesting Spotify to remove the episode to stop the spread of Covid-19 misinformation.
However, the streaming service refused to remove the podcast and this led to several artists like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell taking their music off the platform in protest. Several other artists and podcasters like Roxane Gay and Ava DuVernay decided to boycott Spotify as well.
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While Harry and Markle had also released a statement voicing their concerns over the row, they did not rule out working with the platform. “Hundreds of millions of people are affected by the serious harms of rampant and disinformation every day. Last April, our co-founders began expressing concerns to our partners at Spotify about the all too real consequences of COVID-19 misinformation on its platform,” a spokesperson had said, and added, “We have continued to express our concerns to Spotify to ensure changes to its platform are made to help address this public health crisis. We look to Spotify to meet this moment and are committed to continuing our work together as it does.”
As a result of the backlash, Spotify later removed several of Rogan’s episodes and Rogan too apologised on social media.
A spokesperson for Archewell Audio has now said that following encouraging conversations with the executives of Spotify regarding the platform’s misinformation policies and practices, the production company is going forward with their first-ever podcast series, which is expected to release this summer.
Earlier, the couple had released a single podcast as a holiday special, in December 2020. A number of guests had joined Harry and Markle on that show, including Stacey Abrams, José Andrés, Brené Brown, Deepak Chopra, James Corden, Elton John, Naomi Osaka, and Tyler Perry.