That’s not good enough. For every 1 nutjob, there are 35,000+ real scientists and doctors doing real work. To give ACTUAL equal time would mean for every 1 show he does with a nutjob, he does 35,000+ shows to counter it. But that’s not going to happen, because those 35,000+ are, you know, busy doing real work, and not clowning around on podcasts.
Well, you probably have to clarify that “nutjob” means someone claiming to have academic credentials and/or who has a significant following.
Because random nutjobs of course outnumber scientists.
But in general your point is right. When one opinion has hundreds of peer-reviewed studies, and utilizes models with sufficient predictive power that they have become the basis of several technologies…and the other is “Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend says his balls swelled”, “bias” is giving equal time to these “hypotheses”.
They did that on Last Week Tonight, I think, where they pointed out that in order to have a “debate” on climate change, then you would have to have 3 climate deniers and 97 climate experts.
But when you make it one on one, it creates the false impression that they are equivalent.
So, if Rogan wants to have on a COVID conspiracy person, then he shouldn’t have a doctor on to refute it, he should have dozens if not hundreds to do so.
But, you see, he’s Just Asking Questions.
WhooHoo! Last Podcast on the Left is no longer exclusive to Spotify! Now I can delete that fucking green icon from my phone.
Science Vs, one of the podcasts that Spotify acquired when they bought Gimlet Media is stopping production of new podcasts out of protest, except those that refute misinformation on Spotify.
The letter below isn’t too long, but the TL;DR is (paraphrasing) “Spotify supported us for six months producing strong science content and telling our listeners to switch, and then they slap us in the face by supporting this other shit.”
That was a show I enjoyed, but can’t be bothered to listen to anymore. My thought is I’m glad they’re standing up for their principles, but none of the misinformation on Spotify and Joe Rogan’s podcast are new. It was there six months ago when Science Vs started encouraging listeners to change platforms.
I believe that’s why the paragraph you quoted was followed by a sarcasm tag.
I think it should be put in perspective the level of influence Joe Rogan has. He has a massive audience. Rush Limbaugh did too and in the 1990s was pulling in bigger numbers than Rogan has now without anywhere close the level of accessibility worldwide. The internet was just getting started. The fact of the matter is Rogan’s audience is international. People can download old shows from the archive any time they want. Limbaugh’s radio show for most of its run was carried live and if you didn’t tune in live you missed it. No downloads, no repeats. In terms of mobilizing a political movement Limbaugh having a bigger audience and it being an entirely domestic audience was more influential in American politics and yet at the peak of Limbaugh’s ratings, a Democratic President who he treated like Satan was re-elected (Bill Clinton). You have to remember how big Limbaugh was in those days because he also had TV gigs. The Republican Party for which he became a kingmaker for many years only won the popular vote in a presidential election once in his thirty years of hosting his show.
Limbaugh unlike Rogan was openly tribal about his politics and the politics of those who hated and saw as evil. I think Rogan has become much more right-wing but so far it is more about who he platforms and how he fails to push back on those ideas because he is just not very smart as opposed to Limbaugh who was a one man show a lot of the time truly believing the things that come out of his mouth.
Rogan is not as big as Limbaugh was. He is nowhere near as hateful and divisive. And he’s not as smart either.
Perhaps. I don’t know how he feels about trans people, (I’m not trans, but it’s possible they find him more hateful than I do).
Yes, despite all of the blaming of social media and enablers like Joe Rogan, the biggest villain in the spreading of disinformation is still that old standby Fox News. Fox very much likes to push the view social media is to blame for lots of things, which plays well to the left, who also are suspicious of social media. Everybody gets angry at Facebook or Youtube for spreading the “wrong” message, and ignores the huge part Fox News plays.
This is the reasons Republicans have been working so hard to make sure they can win without the popular vote. No need to play voting suppression and gerrymandering games if you have a substantial majority.
I think Facebook owns a huge share of the blame as well.
I imagine there is a of of crossover in those audiences.
Honestly, I think pretty much every major news organisation has spread serious COVID misinformation at one time or another. No-one’s covered themselves in glory during all this.
However, unlike Spotify, they make efforts to deal with it, taking down antivax and other anti-science posts. Sure, this was only after pressure from outside, but that’s the reason to make a big fuss about Rogan and Spotify.
I don’t think so.
In the early days, when even the experts were not in full agreement as to what was going on, and best practices to mitigate things, I’m sure that there were some things said that later turned out to be incorrect.
Responsible news organizations corrected these mistakes. Irresponsible ones did not.
Joe Rogan and his guest are not on the responsible side of things. Your attempt at creating equivalency fails hard.
I think the biggest flaw in many of the well meaning ones is failure to explain that recommendations change as our knowledge increases.
The reports need to start with something like “this is the best information we have now, and as research and study continues these recommendations will be updated. That is a good thing. It means that we have learned more, and that the recommendations are more effective.”
They also have breathless breaking news reporting on non-reviewed articles published on pre-print servers, and of course no nuanced update when those articles turn out to be flawed. Then people just remember that some scare article they saw turned out to be wrong, and now they don’t know what to believe.
Bringing it back to the OP, it is no wonder that people like Joe Rogan can find a receptive audience for so much disinformation on COVID. “Vaccines bad, ivermectine good” is a nice and clear and simple (and wrong) message. The truthful (to the best of our knowledge) message is much more complex. “Vaccines will protect you, but you still might catch COVID, but vaccines will help prevent severe reactions and death, and you might need to get boosters.” “Clean surfaces, wipe things down. Oops, COVID is airborne, ventilation and masking is more important than hand sanitizer.”
Some organizations have given advice that later turned out to be based on incorrect assumptions or limited information, some have given advice that was poorly vetted ahead of time, and some have given advice knowing it was BS and not caring because it boosts ratings and/or satisfies what their viewers want to hear. It’s not all equal.
I think they’re still one of the largest sources of misinformation despite their “efforts”.
I don’t think it’s a “failure” to explain. I think it’s deliberately not explained.
The problem is that the public is asked to make some pretty substantial lifestyle changes, with lockdowns and social distancing and masks etc. etc. If the authorities come out with a statement that “this is the best information we have and it may turn out to be wrong …” then it’s a lot harder to build public support for those measures. So those in charge or who believe in those measures feel pressured to overstate the level of certainty in their current assessment. This works at the time, but it can rebound negatively if the information is in fact later revised, so that the public loses confidence. If the leadership was more wishy-washy upfront, then they wouldn’t lose the public’s confidence to the same extent, as you note, but they also might not get as much support from the public upfront - and at the time, these recommendations are genuinely believed to be valid and necessary. So what to do?
It’s a tough call, either way. There’s no perfect solution.
CSN have joined in: