[The Hill] Spotify sides with Joe Rogan after Neil Young ultimatum

well this will probably make some heads explode here

The Pressure Campaign on Spotify to Remove Joe Rogan Reveals the Religion of Liberals: Censorship
All factions, at certain points, succumb to the impulse to censor. But for the Democratic Party's liberal adherents, silencing their adversaries has become their primary project.

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-pressure-campaign-on-spotify

 

at the risk of re-entering the fray and having people put words in my mouth or make distracting comparisons to things like book burning, flag burning, witches burning . . . .

Why do you ask about boycotting? without a bit more context, I have nothing here to go on. And Greenwald's article cites a single boycotting example.

I will go back to the original topic. It seems to me that the crux of this issue is that Neil Young made extortive demands on Spotify to engage in censorship of Joe Rogan on his (Young's) behalf. It is likely he knew fully well that Spotify would refuse that demand and that this was an excellent opportunity to create awareness for himself and for this issue.

Young could have acted differently. He could have called upon his fans to drop their Spotify subscriptions. If that amounts to what you are describing as a boycott, I have no problem with that: people are free to make their own choices, and that is to me the paramount value (freedom), all else being equal.

But for Young to make the extortive demand . . . a demand that would in effect take away Rogan's entire communication platform (yes, I know he would still have Youtube etc) crosses the line between a legitimate protest of Rogan's podcast and an illegitimate attempt to SILENCE Rogan and deprive Rogan's listeners of their ability to listen to his podcast.

 

no. that's is exactly NOT what I said. Once again putting words in my mouth. Neil Young is not "boycotting" Spotify. He could have called on his fans to "boycott" Spotify by encouraging them to drop their subscriptions. That would be a boycott. A boycott is not censorship.

Neil Young himself threw a censorship hissy fit on the way to something that might otherwise have resulted in a boycott, as described in my fourth paragraph above:

Young could have acted differently. He could have called upon his fans to drop their Spotify subscriptions. If that amounts to what you are describing as a boycott, I have no problem with that: people are free to make their own choices, and that is to me the paramount value (freedom), all else being equal.
​

I will agree with you that the line between actual censorship and the censoring effects of a genuine consumer boycott are not 100 percent separate and/or unambiguously clear cut. But I disagree with your label of Young's actions as a "boycott"; or at least it seems to me that how you apply that term to Young's actions is a non-standard use of that term as it is commonly used.