The Spotify logo is displayed on a screen on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., May 3, 2018. Rogan is a prominent vaccine skeptic and his views on vaccines and government mandates to control the spread of the virus alienated prominent figures from singer-songwriter Neil Young to guitarist Nils Lofgren to best-selling U.S. 'I will do my best to try to balance out these more controversial viewpoints with other people's perspectives so we can maybe find a better point of view.' 'If I pissed you off, I'm sorry,' Rogan said. In a 10-minute Instagram video post on Sunday evening, Rogan apologized to Spotify for the backlash but defended inviting contentious guests. Rogan's show, The Joe Rogan Experience, has been the most listened-to podcast on Spotify and is central to its plan to expand beyond music and take on rivals such as Apple (AAPL.O) and Amazon for a share of the podcasting market.

Spotify shares were up 2% in pre-market trading on Monday but still at their lowest since May 2020, after the controversy and a broader sell-off of tech stocks in January eroded more than a quarter of its value. Spotify said it would add a content advisory to any episode with discussion of COVID to try to quell the controversy, a first step into the field of content moderation that other platforms such as Facebook have found challenging and costly.

podcaster Joe Rogan has apologized and pledged more balance on his show amid a backlash against COVID-19 misinformation on the streaming service Spotify (SPOT.N) that wiped more than $2 billion off its market value last week.

Spotify stock joe rogan