If you are having one of the biggest platforms in the world, and if the information that you tell is spreading throughout the world with incredible speed, you better watch out for what you are going to say. You better think, not twice, but several times before sharing information, especially if it is related to a topic that is not in your expertise.
Joe Rogan, I am sure you’ve already heard of him, is a famous UFC commentator, podcaster, and comedian. One of these three main ‘professions’, or hobbies as he puts it, attracts the most attention to him. That is his podcasting endeavor.
Joe Rogan BLASTED For Sharing “Misinformation”, Told He Has No Conscience
His podcast ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ tops on the Spotify playlists and has more than 11 million downloads per episode. To put it in other words, that is 11 million people going through more than 2 hours of straight Joe Rogan talking with his guests. And these are the stats per episode!
Considering that he airs an episode every second day that totals to around 170 million views per month. That is a huge number. Imagine the influence that the show has on the world.
Nevertheless, the controversial podcaster has been blamed many times for sharing misinformation, spreading false info, and discussing topics out of his, or his guest’s expertise.
In a recent episode of the Podcast, Rogan had Doug Stanhope as a guest. The fellow comedian brought up exactly this topic to light. At what point should the hosts of any show be responsible for deception?
The comedians spoke about the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who hosts an Infowars show. Joe Rogan had him on the podcast several times, where they elaborated on some of the theories that Alex brought up.
Conspiracy theories are a common topic on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. And Rogan is not alone in this sphere. Conspiracy theories are all over the internet. You can search for any information that you’d like, and you will come across some conspiracy regarding it. Nothing that is popular in this world doesn’t come by without analysis from someone else.
One of the Alex Jones conspiracies is that some public personalities, politicians, and celebrities are regularly going to Jeffrey Epstein’s island to have sex with underage girls and boys. Now, what is more interesting, is that this Alex Jones conspiracy seems to turn true.
“Well, he’s right about enough things that it’s very confusing. You know, Alex Jones was right about late billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.” – Rogan says and adds – “If you hang out with Alex, you would understand. Alex has problems, he definitely had problems. But the problem with Alex is that all day long, he’s investigating conspiracies. Finally, he’s finding out how many of them are accurate.”
And this is the point where Stanhope shoves. He asks the question at what point does Rogan think that the sharer of information is responsible for the deception.
“We’re talking shit. If you wanna take my word in talking shit, that’s a problem.” Rogan says.
“If you want to take my word, if we’re just discussing some things we saw on the news like what is happening, ‘What’s going on with Roe v. Wade?’ we don’t even know. If that’s the case and you want to base your worldview on that, that’s not wise.”
Rogan is not shy to tell it as it is. Even if it means downgrading himself and his knowledge for some topic. He says that the public shouldn’t base its opinions on serious topics according to his opinion, however, he is not saying that he will stop talking about it.
And that’s the full goal of the freedom of speech. So you can say what you wanna say where you wanna say it. Censoring him, or blocking his words to not reach his audience is something that is considered a violation of the declaration of human rights.
There is an article in the Declaration of human rights that says: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression. This right includes the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
And we cannot take that away from anyone. Especially if he publicly states that the information that he shares is not to be taken as the main source of informing yourself about a certain topic.
“If I know things, I’m going to tell you that I absolutely 100 percent know things. And if I don’t, I go, ‘Did you hear this thing? What is this?’ So I can engage you to speak more about it. Because you as the guest are the expert in that field. Not me.” – Rogan says – “If you wanna say I shouldn’t talk about this because I don’t have a degree in that, or I don’t know, or too many people are listening. That’s nonsense! You can always state your opinion.”
However, he does have some responsibility when speaking about such sensitive topics. Bordering deception seems like an interesting thing to do, but you cannot deceive people about something if you are aware that they believe you. Whether they should, or shouldn’t believe you it’s a different topic. But if they do, you shouldn’t play with that.
That is why Spotify implemented the advisory that sits above each of the controversial episodes of the podcast. To remind you that you are not to believe everything you hear on the podcast. Research, read, and educate yourself on each subject that you want to form an opinion on. Please do not limit your knowledge to only one source. Especially if it is a source such as JRE podcast.
Finally, we cannot blame Joe for everything he says and classify it as a deception. He says all kinds of things on the podcast. It’s 2 hours per episode, at least. He will say all kinds of stuff during this time, in order to engage his guest to elaborate more on some topic that he claims to be an expert at.
