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It turns out this incident wasn’t about censorship. Joe Rogan’s interview with former President Donald Trump went dark on YouTube shortly after its release on Friday, prompting some viewers to speculate that Big Tech was deliberately suppressing Trump’s appearance. However, Rogan took to social media to clarify the situation.
There is no issue with YouTube censoring the trump episode. It was just supposed to go live on both Spotify and YouTube at the same time and there was a glitch in Spotify’s upload system and so we delisted the YouTube link until it’s fixed. It should be fine now
— Joe Rogan (@joerogan) October 26, 2024
“There is no issue with YouTube censoring the Trump episode,” Rogan wrote. “It was just supposed to go live on both Spotify and YouTube at the same time and there was a glitch in Spotify’s upload system, and so we delisted the YouTube link until it’s fixed. It should be fine now.” Rogan’s fans greeted this news with relief.
There is no issue with YouTube censoring the trump episode. It was just supposed to go live on both Spotify and YouTube at the same time and there was a glitch in Spotify’s upload system and so we delisted the YouTube link until it’s fixed. It should be fine now
— Joe Rogan (@joerogan) October 26, 2024
Still, the immediate suspicion is understandable. Trump supporters—and conservatives in general—have many reasons to be cautious about their treatment on social media platforms. YouTube, owned by Google, along with Facebook and the platform formerly known as Twitter (before its acquisition by billionaire free-speech advocate Elon Musk), has a history of suppressing conservative viewpoints. The censorship of the New York Post’s exposé about the Hunter Biden laptop in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election should be remembered as one of the most egregious examples of political information manipulation in American history. If leftists were inclined to silence an interview, the Trump-Rogan podcast would have been a prime target.
During the three-hour conversation, the former—and possibly future—president discussed a wide range of topics, including who he considers “the enemy within.” As of late Saturday morning Eastern Daylight Time, the episode had already garnered over 11.8 million views.
A Trump-Rogan interview would make headlines in political circles under any circumstances, but with only ten days left before the November 5 election, every development in the political landscape carries extra weight. Social media companies have given conservatives ample reason to believe that Friday’s podcast might be targeted. But this time, it wasn’t censorship.
