Updated 29 January 2022 at 22:31 IST
After Neil Young removes music from Spotify, friend Joni Mitchell follows suit; Here's why
After Canadian-American singer Neil Young removed his music from Spotify, longtime friend Joni Mitchell followed the suit in solidarity with the singer.
Legendary singer Joni Mitchell recently announced that she will be removing her music from Spotify following her longtime friend Neil Young's exit from the platform. The latest development came after the former decided to stand 'in solidarity' with Young and because of 'Irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives'. Young and Mitchell are known to be linked to the 60s activism.
Joni Mitchell to remove music from Spotify
As per a report from Deadline, the 78-year-old singer took to her personal website to announce that she will be removing her music from the platform and extended her support to Neil young as well as the medical community. Her statement read, ''I’ve decided to remove all my music from Spotify. 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.”
Why did Neil Young remove his music from Spotify?
For the unversed, the 76-year-old took to his personal website to call out Spotify lacking misinformation policy, as per Deadline. He wrote, ''Spotify has a responsibility to mitigate the spread of misinformation on its platform, though the company presently has no misinformation policy. I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines – potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them. Please act on this immediately today and keep me informed of the time schedule.”
Following his exit from the platform, Spotify's share values took a major fall as it lost over $2 billion in market capitalization. As per The Hollywood Reporter, the platform issued a statement to address the situation and stated that they would welcome back Neil Young. The statement read,
''We want all the world’s music and audio content to be available to Spotify users. With that comes great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom for creators. We have detailed content policies in place and we’ve removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to COVID since the start of the pandemic. We regret Neil’s decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon.”
Image: Instagram/@jonimitchell
Published By : Princia Hendriques
Published On: 29 January 2022 at 22:31 IST