Yep, either they remain absolute, or they will bend in the wind at every new demand. Compromising with the modern version of book burners is not going to be a good long term strategy.
Worse, they spent a lot of money and knew what they were getting, so it just makes them look like idiots to investors.
"book burners" seems like a particularly poor analogy, given that the general motivation is to reduce the death toll of Covid-19, not eradicate a cultural heritage (which was, in the case of the Nazis - the quintessential book burners - accompanied by a deliberate mass genocide). A more apt comparison would be people who lobbied to restrict tobacco advertising (see the Surgeon General's Warning, etc.)
I'm sure the motivation of many book burners of the past was also to save the would-be readers from eternal hell. Possible good motivations don't justify censorship.
You could argue that in this particular case censorship probably won't even be effective. Rogan is seen as a something of a censorship martyr by quite a few people now, Streisand effect and all.
Also, there's the fact that most of the removed episodes have nothing to do with Covid-19.
GP said "modern version of book burners". You say it's a poor analogy and "beyond hyperbolic" (below)... and then bring up the Nazis and the Holocaust.
Were all these deleted episodes just about COVID misinformation? All 113 of them? I haven't listened to them but the other comments on this thread seem to indicate that is not the case at all.
I can't speak to Spotify's odd decisions. I don't really care what they did. But the initial "outrage" was targeted specifically at Covid misinformation.
Either way, the book burning analogy is beyond hyperbolic.
The point is simply to ground the conversation in reality, not in this peculiar language of extremes. Will spreading medical disinformation on a popular media platform kill people? Yes, probably. Is skepticism of mainstream medical narrative healthy? Yes, probably. Are those two things in tension with each other? Yes, usually. Should private platforms restrict content that will probably hurt people? Maybe, I don't know. Is this the moral or historical equivalent of book burning? No.
Would you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN? You've been doing it a lot, unfortunately, and we ban that sort of account.
A more apt analogy would be efforts to restrict cigarette advertising. Book burning was about eradicating a cultural heritage, and was accompanied by a literal genocide in the case of Nazi Germany.
Although in this case, the action to remove the proverbial cigarette ads was taken voluntarily by the private media (magazine/etc., in the case of the analogy), and not done as a result of government coersion.
The analogy is really disingenuous at best, and pretty stupid at worst.
Book burnings were hardly exclusive to the Nazis. They just showed us how it can be part of the progress to something much bigger and uglier than ever imagined. And I have to disagree on your cigarette analogy. This is so much bigger than regulation of advertising. This is about using the platforms to enforce censorship of anybody you deem offensive. This is not the same thing at all.
It's actually less severe than restriction on advertising, since it's the voluntary decision of a private media entity, not a government enforced restriction on published content. (Under pressure from another content provider, Neil Young)
It is much smaller than restriction on advertising.
Censorship and book burning are not identical. Regulation and censorship are not identical. Requiring a surgeon general's warning on cigarette advertisements is not censorship, for example. The government preventing a newpaper from from publishing an op-ed in favor of smoking, or consuming large amounts of alcohol while pregnant, etc. would be censorship, true. Would it be as morally reprehensible as the book burnings of history? Probably not. Would it be wrong? Maybe, I don't know.
Please don't do this type of stuff. We are adults capable of having discussions without needing to tug on Dan's skirt especially considering the increasingly heavy handed moderation here. You're actively eroding the culture of maturity here.
Worse, they spent a lot of money and knew what they were getting, so it just makes them look like idiots to investors.