The Joe Rogan Controversy Has a Deeper Cause

When Neil Young said he’d take his music off Spotify if it kept streaming the podcaster Joe Rogan, I doubted he was trying to deplatform Rogan. I assumed he was just telling the company, “I don’t need this. I’m out of here.” I support Young’s stance. He has the moral right to get off Spotify, the largest music-streaming service, to protest Rogan’s comments about COVID-19 vaccines. But, notably, Young himself did not in fact have the legal right to leave. He’d signed away those rights to his label, which is part of Warner Music Group, and he had to ask Warner to let him leave Spotify as a personal favor. The rights of speech and association are, as always, constrained by contracts and commerce—in the arts as much as in the tech world. And ultimately, the over Rogan’s show says