Today's Burn

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How it's going

Andrew Tate detained in Romania over rape and human trafficking case

Controversial online influencer Andrew Tate has been detained in Romania as part of a human trafficking and rape investigation.

Tate - who was detained alongside his brother Tristan - had his house raided in the capital, Bucharest.

A police spokesperson confirmed the arrests to the BBC.

The former kickboxer rose to fame in 2016 when he was removed from British TV show Big Brother over a video which appeared to show him attacking a woman.

He went on to gain notoriety online, with Twitter banning him for saying women should "bear responsibility" for being sexually assaulted. He has since been reinstated.

Despite social media bans he gained popularity, particularly among young men, by promoting an ultra-masculine, ultra-luxurious lifestyle.

He regularly appeared in videos with a fleet of expensive sports cars, on private jets, and enjoying expensive holidays.

Speaking to the BBC, a spokesperson for the Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) said prosecutors had applied to hold the influencer at a "detention centre" for an additional 30 days.

A judge will rule on the application on Friday, the spokesperson added. The brothers have been under investigation since April alongside two Romanian nationals.

During the detention hearing, the two brothers maintained their right to silence, their lawyer told the BBC.

"The four suspects... appear to have created an organised crime group with the purpose of recruiting, housing and exploiting women by forcing them to create pornographic content meant to be seen on specialised websites for a cost," DIICOT said in a statement.

Video on social media showed Tate and his brother being led away from a luxury villa.

A spokesperson for Tate told the Daily Mirror that he could not provide details relating to the arrest. "However, Andrew and Tristan Tate have the utmost respect for the Romanian authorities and will always assist and help in any way they can," he added.

Later, a tweet was sent from Andrew Tate's Twitter account alluding to the 1999 movie The Matrix, a film he regularly refers to in his posts.

"The Matrix sent their agents," the post said. The account also retweeted Matrix memes posted by Twitter owner Elon Musk.

On Thursday night, Romania's Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism issued a statement, but did not name the Tate brothers, stating that two British citizens and two Romanian citizens were suspected of being part of a human trafficking group.

The statement said officers had identified six people who were "sexually exploited" by what it called an "organised criminal group".

Police alleged the victims were "recruited" by the British citizens, who they said had misrepresented their intention to enter into a relationship with the victims - which it called "the loverboy method".

They were later forced to perform in pornographic content under threat of violence, the statement said.

Police also released a video of the raid, showing guns, knives, and money on display in one room.

Tate moved to Romania five years ago. Rumours swirled online that police were tipped off to Tate's presence in the country when he posted a video taking aim at the environmental activist Greta Thunberg.

In the footage he posted, he was handed a pizza box from a local restaurant, which some users suggested had inadvertently revealed his location.

However, the pizza box is not thought to be relevant.

ed note: And that won't matter. A meme is born and will live forever.

The row with the activist began earlier this week when Tate, 36, tagged the 19-year-old in a post boasting about the "enormous emissions" produced by his fleet of cars.

Following the arrest, she tweeted "this is what happens when you don't recycle your pizza boxes," referring to the online rumour.

In 2016, he entered the Big Brother house but was soon removed after a video appeared to show him hitting a woman with a belt.

At the time of his expulsion, Tate said the video had been edited, calling it "a total lie trying to make me look bad".

Mr Tate has been banned from social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, with TikTok also removing him, saying "misogyny is a hateful ideology that is not tolerated".

He had been banned from Twitter but was recently allowed back onto the platform following Elon Musk's takeover.

it was the fuck-around-iest of times

it was the find-out-iest of times

Come Up And See Me Sometime

Elmo is too chicken to allow links from Twitter to certain other social media.

@evilleMike@mstdn.party

So guess what Rupert Murdoch has authorized?

This is an explainer that's not behind the WSJ's pay wall.

⬆︎click me⬆︎

(They disabled the copy function, so you'll have to follow the link)

Elmo Is A Chickenshit

Alex Wagner, with Linette Lopez

Today In Stochastic Terrorism

Elmo is not stupid.

But like so many of his fellow travelers, he is malicious in his feigned ignorance.

He deleted that tweet shortly after he posted it, but the implied threat landed - it had the intended effect.

ie: Punish a few journalists by suspending their accounts, then threaten all the others in a vague, off-handed way, and then "retract" the threat to cover your ass.

I truly hope we don't start thinking we can all go back to sleep, believing the elections of 2020 and 2022 put an end to this Daddy State shit. It didn't.

These assholes will keep trying for as long as we allow them to roam free.

We have to stomp the GOP

until there's nothing left

but a greasy spot on the rug.

And even then,

don't start thinking it's over -

there will be a next time.

There's always a next time.

Down To The Bottom

Elmo is just another faux-populist.

And he doesn't get to claim he's a "free speech absolutist" when he's banned Kathy Griffin and Kanye West.

Brett Ehrlich - Rebel HQ

Worth noting: Elmo overpaid by a factor of about 8, and he put some percentage of his total holdings on the line when he bought Twitter - he goes broke if he doesn't juice the fuck out of the user traffic.

Elmo's Twitter 2.0

And again, the gang who always belittles "lefties" who just want to be left alone - who want some place where they can just relax and be groovy - the wingnuts seem to be insisting on turning every corner of human existence into their own personal "safe space". The death irony, part ∞.

Angry Tweeters Are Being Force-Fed Extremism In Surprise New Feeds On Elon Musk's Twitter

Users complain their timelines are being inundated with right-wing tweets from people they don't follow and don't like, offering points of view they oppose.

Twitter users are complaining that Elon Musk’s newly acquired company is manipulating their feeds to blast them with obnoxious tweets from extremists they loathe.

A significant number of users say that their profile feeds, or timelines, have become unrecognizable and are now riddled with tweets from extremists pushing perspectives they oppose. It’s a strange concept of “free speech,” which Musk claims to support.

Thousands of people responded to actor George Takei’s tweet Thursday complaining about the radical change in tweets he’s receiving, including one from “asshat” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), whom the civil rights activist pointedly noted he does not follow.

His feed also included a surprise tweet from Donald Trump Jr. Takei said he would “sooner follow a banana slug” on Twitter than the former president’s son.

The surprise tweets are not “retweets or likes by others,” which would be expected to pop up. Instead, they’re “just random far-right tweets,” Takei noted. “I feel sullied by the experience.”

Oddly, a number of people on Twitter complained that tweets from teen shooter Kyle Rittenhouse were suddenly popping up on their feeds. One user said Musk seems to be attempting to “de-algorithm” the left.

Still others complained about getting rando unwanted Twitter messages plugging Tesla, another Musk company.

Several right wingers responding to Takei insisted that being exposed to extremist tweets — which could include misogynistic, racist, antisemitic and trans- and homophobic messages — is “good” for progressives.

Twitter has confirmed that the intentional change is underway in a statement Thursday, saying that it is “expanding ‘recommendations’ to all users, including those who may not have seen them in the past,” apparently whether they like it or not. The statement describes the unwelcome tweets as the “best content on the platform.”

If “you’ve ever seen a Tweet ... from someone you didn’t follow, you’ve probably seen a recommendation,” explained a Twitter blog statement about the new policy in September. “Think of them as personalized suggestions.”

Many who responded to the new policy strongly disagreed with it and wondered how they could opt out of white supremacy “best content” recommendations.

Users are sharing tips on how to dodge Musk’s right-wing re-education program. Many suggested blocking tweets, though some users said Twitter appeared to be unblocking blocked senders. Also, for those with thousands of followers, like Takei, blocking extremists, especially when they’re powered by Twitter itself, could be a full-time job.

Others suggested changing (or sticking to) the preference for “latest” tweets rather than the “for you” timeline, a strategy that appeared to be confirmed in the Twitter blog — though how to make that choice was not immediately clear.

Meanwhile, users are continuing to seethe:

Today's Oy

Twitter isn't the cess pool we all thought it might be by now, although it's certainly moving in that direction, and it seems to be picking up steam.

I've seen some changes in what the algorithm feeds me, and because I'm drawing some pretty heavy fire from certain quarters, I'm guessing Elmo got rid of the Safety and Disinformation gang so as to get people to mix it up and make it more "exciting" (?)

"Free speech is an absolute." --Elmo Musk

According to my Twitter Analytics, my best Engagement numbers this week came courtesy of a reply to one of my tweets about the 2nd amendment.

From Kevin Sorbo:

Translated: "They're coming for your guns!!!!!"

I replied:

And this guy jumped in with:

So here's my chicken-or-egg thing for today:

Are the rubes ignorant because "conservatives" have taught them to be proud of their ignorance? Or did they start out dumb as a mud fence, and "conservatives" are just propagating it so they can cash in on it?

All my life, I've heard how Americans are industrious and honest and kind - and (with apologies to The Scout Law) brave, clean, and reverent. And I guess I just always figured you can't very well live up to all that stuff if you don't have the brains to know what any of it means.

The whole big fuckin' mess has become far more insidious than just: "Don't worry - be happy".

This is: "You don't have to know anything but how to run the machines and fill out the paperwork. Let your 'betters' do the thinking and make the decisions."

CONFORM AND BE DULL

--Frank Dobey

Today's Calming Influence

Scott Galloway, NYU Sterns School of Business:

As societies become wealthier and more educated, the reliance on a super being, and church attendance goes down, but they still look for idols.

Into that void have stepped technology leaders because technology is the closest thing we have to magic.

Our new Jesus was Steve Jobs, and now Elon Musk has taken on that mantle. And, every ridiculously mean, non-sensical, irrational move he makes is somehow seen as chess, not checkers - we're just not privy to his genius yet.

Christiane Amanpour

Another Semi-Bright Spot

Today, in ElmoLand, I spied a new feature called "Community Notes".

Seems like a really good idea - trying to get a handle on some of the more egregious bullshit that bad actors are constantly dumping into the information streams.

But I'm not convinced the Twitter staffers will be able to keep up with it because the ones Elmo hasn't fired yet are quitting at a pretty high rate. And if this Community thing is going to work, you kinda need a community - ie: human type people - and not leave it up to automation.

The untended/unmoderated algorithm is what turned sites like Twitter into sewers, and the intervention of actual warm bodies with thinking brains has brought them back to a more tolerable level of vitriol and darkness.

Anyway, I signed up. They say they'll let me know if I get to play. I'm not holding out any great hope, of course. I haven't been sent to TwitMo in a while, but I can be pretty snarky, and I get intercepted regularly by the Tsk-Tsk Bot that tells me maybe I should rethink what I've said in a reply tweet before I send it.

Like the zen master says:

We'll see

Asshole With A Megaphone

(pay wall)

Elon Musk deleted a tweet about Paul Pelosi. Here’s why that matters.

The comment amplified a baseless report about the attack on her husband and stirred an outcry

Elon Musk, who has more than 100 million followers, had owned Twitter for less than three full days when he shared a post containing misinformation — then hours later deleted it.

On Sunday, he posted a response to Hillary Clinton that “there is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story” behind the attack on Paul Pelosi in San Francisco, linking to an opinion article in the Santa Monica Observer, a site described by fact-checkers as a low-credibility source favoring the extreme right.

The article claimed without evidence that Pelosi was drunk at the time of the assault and “in a dispute with a male prostitute.” The article, which was amplified by several right-wing figures, cited no sources and attributes its contents to IMHO — internet shorthand for “in my humble opinion.”

Musk faced immediate and widespread backlash from users who said the tweet revealed his Twitter ownership as unserious and accused him of promoting an unfounded conspiracy theory.

One commenter, Yael Eisenstat, a vice president of the Anti Defamation League and former Facebook executive, noted on Twitter that Musk seemed to be violating his own pledge to advertisers last week that the site would not become a “hellscape” under his ownership.

When the world’s richest man/owner of this very site himself traffics in conspiracy theories days after claiming to advertisers that he’s going to be a responsible leader, all I can say is: I’m not overreacting by expressing my concerns. Actions always speak louder than words. pic.twitter.com/00RhlJa4rh

— Yael Eisenstat (@YaelEisenstat) October 30, 2022

Another Twitter user, David Rothkopf, a former Clinton administration official and political pundit with nearly 293,000 Twitter followers, suggested Musk eventually would have to ban himself.

It's already becoming apparent that in order to save Twitter, ultimately Elon's going to have to ban himself.

— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) October 30, 2022

Hours later, Musk deleted his tweet. It wasn’t immediately clear what prompted him to do so.

But it highlights the conflict Musk faces as he takes over a social media platform whose moderation policies he’s consistently criticized as too strict while also pledging that he won’t allow it to become a free-for-all that advertisers might not want to associate with. Already, Musk has had to acknowledge that suspended accounts like former president Donald Trump’s won’t be reinstated until a so-far-undefined “moderation council” has convened to determine policy.

Neither Musk nor Twitter responded to a request for comment.

Musk has one of the largest audiences of any public figure on Twitter, and is among its most prolific tweeters. He has a track record of using his account to promote or allude to misinformation, and to interact with and amplify a circle of prominent right-wing influencers online.

Before closing on his purchase of Twitter, Musk expressed an expansive view of free speech, arguing for little policing beyond platforms removing speech that was clearly illegal. That approach would rule out the policing of misinformation, disinformation, harassment, bullying, and other content that Twitter and other social media companies take action against, through a system of deletions, warning notices, and quiet demotions known as “shadow bans.”

But that willingness to spout misinformation — or to boost it by using the tactic of “just raising questions” — could create major conflicts for him and for Twitter now that he owns the company.

Musk’s tweet Sunday did not appear to break any of Twitter’s current rules because it was framed as a question and because the types of misinformation Twitter bans are fairly limited. It’s unknown if he faced pressure inside Twitter or from advertisers before he deleted it.

Historically, social media company owners, such as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, have tried to avoid controversial public political opinions because they don’t want to be perceived as putting their thumb on the scale of the algorithms that govern public expression. Moreover, social media platforms including Twitter have made a point of pushing the public toward authoritative sources of information to counter the proliferation of misinformation on their services. Putting up curated links and labels to reputable news sites is a key part of Twitter’s and other companies’ strategies to counter misleading content.

Advertisers, which are the main source of revenue for Twitter, are also known to protest such content. An advertiser boycott of Facebook in 2020 helped force that social media platform to adopt tougher policies on hate speech.

“Musk owning Twitter is like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse when it comes to political misinformation,” said Joan Donovan, research director of the Technology and Social Change Research Project at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. “When he was just a user, that did not matter as much as it does now because people may come to distrust the platform if they don’t trust the owner’s core values.”

Donovan said the Musk tweet failed to recognize Twitter’s value as a place where people seek authoritative information about everything from geopolitical conflicts to elections.

“We would imagine that in order to be seen as a trusted interlocutor, like a politician, business owner, or journalist, he would care about the quality of news in the so-called public square,” she said, adding that he should issue a correction.

The Republican Party and its mouthpieces now regularly spread hate and deranged conspiracy theories. It is shocking, but not surprising, that violence is the result. As citizens, we must hold them accountable for their words and the actions that follow.https://t.co/MQor4NDFeE

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 29, 2022

Twitter largely does not prohibit misinformation except in certain cases. The company has a “crisis misinformation policy,” launched earlier this year during the Ukraine war, which lets the company put a warning notice on and demote content that “mischaracterizes conditions on the ground” as a conflict evolves.

The company also bans “deep fakes,” or the posting of any imagery or video that has been manipulated, as well as misinformation about the coronavirus. Content that purposefully attempts to mislead the public about voting processes or an election outcome is demoted by the company’s algorithms and could receive warning labels and links to authoritative information.

In 2020, Musk tweeted that “Kids are essentially immune” to covid-19, a comment that appeared to come right up against Twitter’s ban of content that contradicts established public health information about the virus (Children of all ages can contract and experience complications from the coronavirus, according to the Mayo Clinic, although are less likely to become severely ill).

In 2018 Musk tweeted he had “Funding secured” to take Tesla private at $420 per share, leading the Securities and Exchange Commission to accuse him of misleading investors. Musk and the SEC settled, leading Musk to relinquish his board chairmanship of Tesla and for he and the company to each pay $20 million fines.

He has also taken down tweets in the past. Just this month, Musk tweeted and then deleted a meme that showed he, former president Donald Trump and rapper and fashion designer Ye (formerly Kanye West) lording over various social networks (Ye bought the conservative network Parler and Trump controls his own network, TruthSocial). Twitter users captured screenshots of the tweet, which read “In retrospect, it was inevitable.”

See also

Elon Musk, right-wing figures push misinformation about Pelosi attack

Twitter’s new owner sowed doubt about law enforcement’s account as suggestions of a ‘false flag’ flooded social media sites

Elon Musk and a wide range of right-wing personalities cobbled together misreporting, innuendo and outright falsehoods to amplify misinformation about last week’s violent assault on Paul Pelosi to their millions of online followers.

A forum devoted to former White House adviser Stephen K. Bannon’s right-wing radio show alerted its 78,000 subscribers to “very strange new details on Paul Pelosi attack.” Roger Stone, a longtime political consigliere to former president Donald Trump, took to the fast-growing messaging app Telegram to call the assault on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband an “alleged attack,” telling his followers that a “stench” surrounded mainstream reporting about the Friday break-in that left Pelosi, 82, hospitalized with a skull fracture and other serious injuries.

The skepticism didn’t stay in right-wing echo chambers but seeped also into the feeds of popular online personalities, including Musk, Twitter’s new owner.

The rush to sow doubt about the assault on Pelosi’s husband illustrates how aggressively influential figures on the right are seeking to dissuade the public from believing facts about the violence, seizing on the event to promote conspiracy theories and provoke distrust. The House speaker has long been a bugbear for the right, which has intensified its rhetorical blitz on her in recent years — even as extreme threats against members of Congress have increased.

- more -

Today's Neighbors

Posted on Twitter, so grains of salt all 'round, but does anyone really feel inclined to think this didn't happen because, "Hey - America is just too good a place for this shit to go on"?

First, there's this:

And then there's the bit about (paraphrasing) "your daughter is a slut who's trying to tempt my darling innocent boy, blah blah blah.

And we can overlook the glaring grammar fails, cuz the best part is the not-so-thinly-veiled threat at the end:

"...back to a reservation with your people. For the well-being of you and your family."

There is no hate quite like Christian love.

The Death Of Irony, Part ∞

Variety:

Trump’s Truth Social Is Banning Users Who Post About Jan. 6 Hearings, According to Reports

The irony is rich: Truth Social, Donald Trump’s Twitter copycat claiming it is “free from political discrimination,” has reportedly banned users who posted information from Thursday’s congressional hearing on the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol — in which the former president is a key focus.

That’s according to several posts on Twitter by users who claimed Truth Social was censoring them. Reps for Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns and operates Truth Social, did not respond to a request for comment.

Travis Allen, whose Twitter bio describes him as an information security analyst, on Thursday evening posted a screenshot from the Truth Social app that said “Account suspended,” and he wrote: “My Truth Social account was just permanently suspended for talking about the January 6th Committee hearings.”

He added, “So much for ‘free speech.’ This is censorship!” Allen did not provide details about what allegedly led to Truth Social kicking him off the platform.

“Seeing a lot of folks getting banned from Trump’s Truth Social for posting updates about the January 6 Committee hearings,” Max Burns, communications director for Democratic New York State Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, tweeted Friday. “Apparently free speech has its limits even in Trumpland.”

Also Friday morning, another Twitter user reported, “Just put out my first post on Truth social and they deleted it. Real freedom of speech champs there.”

Truth Social’s terms of service state, “We reserve the right to, in our sole discretion and without notice or liability, deny access to and use of the service (including blocking certain IP addresses), to any person for any reason or for no reason… We may terminate your use or participation in the service or delete [your account and] any content or information that you posted at any time, without warning, in our sole discretion.” (Twitter’s terms of service include similar language.) In the U.S., under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, internet platforms like Truth Social have legal protections for their content-moderation decisions — a carve-out that Trump unsuccessfully sought to revoke when he occupied the White House.

Twitter permanently banned Trump in the days after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot citing the risk of ongoing violence after he posted a video praising the violent mob seeking to overturn the 2020 election. Billionaire Elon Musk, whose $44 billion bid for Twitter is pending, has called Twitter’s ban of the ex-president a mistake and a decision he would reverse.

Earlier this year, as a counter to the imagined anti-conservative bias of Big Tech, Trump launched Truth Social. It’s not clear how many users are on Truth Social. Trump currently has 3.2 million followers on the app; before he was banned from Twitter, he had more than 88 million followers.

As of March 31, 2022, Trump Media & Technology Group had not generated any revenue to date and has warned investors that “TMTG may never generate any operating revenues or ever achieve profitable operations.” Sarasota, Fla.-based TMTG had approximately 40 full-time employees as of the end of March, per a regulatory filing by Digital World Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that intends to merge with TMTG.

At some point, Trump’s media company plans to launch a subscription-streaming service called TMTG+ with a range of right-wing and “non-woke” content, including “Trump-specific programming” as well as “blue-collar comedy” and “cancelled shows.”

TMTG is led by CEO Devin Nunes, the former Republican congressman who once unsuccessfully sued Twitter and anonymous parody accounts Devin Nunes’ Cow and Devin Nunes’ Mom, alleging defamation.

Trump also sued Twitter unsuccessfully. In a complaint filed last year, the ex-president and others asserted that Twitter was a “government actor” and therefore bound to the First Amendment’s prohibition against abridging freedom of speech — i.e., that Twitter’s ban on Trump was unconstitutional. A federal judge rejected that argument and dismissed the case last month.

Today's Reddit

We've got us a pretty fucked up joint here.

Today's Julie

Best breakdown of the Cost/Benefit equation of Use, Abuse, and Addiction since Carlin.

Julie Nolke - Are You Sad?

Today's Weak Tea

If you sell products and services that facilitate people getting hurt or killed, then you own some of the responsibility.

You can't duck that responsibility simply by intoning some magic phrase like, "Well gee, we didn't know some asshole was going to use it that way."

OK, you didn't know. But now you do know, and now you have to step up and do something.

Content platforms have enormous power, and power has to be closely monitored and counterbalanced.

I don't know how to do that with Spotify and Facebook et al, and nobody wants a new era of Hayes Office or Catholic League bullshit, and we sure as hell don't want official government censorship. But waiting for "the free market to fix it" is inadequate because it's totally retrospective, having always resulted in unnecessary immiseration while we diddle around fretting about the delicate sensibilities of corporations who seem incapable of understanding that killing the customers is a really bad idea.

So anyway, here's a WaPo piece (pay wall)

Spotify responds after Joni Mitchell and others join Neil Young and demand the platform remove their content

Spotify broke its silence on Sunday and announced slight changes to its policies around content concerning covid-19, after facing a week of criticism for allowing its creators — particularly podcaster Joe Rogan — to spread misinformation about the pandemic.

“You’ve had a lot of questions over the last few days about our platform policies and the lines we have drawn between what is acceptable and what is not,” Spotify CEO Daniel Ek wrote in a news release. “We have had rules in place for many years but admittedly, we haven’t been transparent around the policies that guide our content more broadly.”

That last sentence is perfect CorpSpeak

24 words that say exactly nothing.

The new changes include publicly publishing the company’s internal rules for what is allowed on the platform, “testing ways to highlight” those rules to its creators and “working to add a content advisory to any podcast episode that includes a discussion about COVID-19.”

“We know we have a critical role to play in supporting creator expression while balancing it with the safety of our users,” Ek wrote. “In that role, it is important to me that we don’t take on the position of being content censor while also making sure that there are rules in place and consequences for those who violate them.”

The controversy began last week, when rocker Neil Young posted a letter on his website demanding that his music be removed from Spotify in response to “fake information about vaccines” on the platform. He singled out Rogan, who hosts “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, as part of his issue with Spotify, writing: “They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.”

Two days later, Spotify began the process of pulling Young’s music, saying in a statement that they “regret” Young’s decision “but hope to welcome him back soon.”

Days later, others began joining Young. “I’ve decided to remove all my music from Spotify,” eight-time Grammy-winning songwriter Joni Mitchell wrote in a statement on her website on Friday. “Irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives. I stand in solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical communities on this issue.”

Nils Lofgren, the frontman of rock band Grin and a member of both Crazy Horse and Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, wrote in a statement on Young’s website that he would “cut ties with Spotify” and urged “all musicians, artists and music lovers everywhere” to do the same. Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston who hosts the “Unlocking Us” and “Dare to Lead” podcasts on Spotify, tweeted Saturday that she “will not be releasing any podcasts until further notice,” though she did not say why. Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, who have a deal to host and produce Spotify podcasts, expressed “concerns” in a statement released Sunday.

Folk rocker David Crosby, a former bandmate of Young’s, tweeted that he would remove his music from the service, but “I no longer control it or I would in support of Neil.” That’s true for many rock stars lately, who could deal a blow to the streaming service if they hadn’t sold their entire catalogues already for large sums.

Others, including Howard Stern and “The View” host Joy Behar, have argued that while they don’t agree with Rogan, they don’t think the platform should remove his podcast, equating such a move to censorship.

The resulting fallout, according to Variety, found Spotify’s market capitalization falling more than $2 billion last week.

Spotify’s newly published platform rules shed light on why Rogan — who has suggested healthy, young people shouldn’t get vaccinated; praised ivermectin, a medicine used to kill parasites in animals and humans that has no proven anti-covid benefits; and invited prominent conspiracy theorists onto his show — has not been heavily penalized.

The rules include disallowing “content that promotes dangerous false or dangerous deceptive medical information that may cause offline harm or poses a direct threat to public health,” such as asserting that covid-19 is a hoax or “promoting or suggesting that vaccines approved by local health authorities are designed to cause death.”

Rogan doesn’t quite do any of that. He often argues that he’s merely asking questions and has insisted that he’s “not anti-vax.” And he’s particularly skilled at insulating himself from criticism by arguing that he knows nothing, so he can’t tell anyone anything. “I’m not a respected source of information, even for me,” he said.

And then finally, we get Rogan's attempt to cop out completely - "Who am I? I'm nobody. People shouldn't make decisions based on anything they hear from me."

And my favorite - the classic DumFux News Defense: "I'm just asking questions - I'm not telling anyone what to do or not do - they're all free to draw their own conclusions and make their own decisions and blah blah blah."

And ultimately, of course, they're right. No one should listen to them. At all. Ever.

But people do listen, and they do make decisions according to what they've heard.

When those decisions are based on bullshit being spouted by some asshole making bank on the ignorance and gullibility of his audience, that asshole has to be held to account. Which must then lead us to devise ways of prospectively mitigating the harm done by those assholes - and their asshole audience.

eVilleMike has spoken. So let it be written. So let it be done.