Neil Young vs Joe Rogan seems like the strangest of cultural clashes.

Yet the 76-year-old rock star's protest over coronavirus-related content on Rogan's popular Spotify podcast has ignited a hot debate over misinformation and free speech, bruising a streaming service that has become the central way that millions of people around the world experience music.

"Rockin' in the Free World"? Not on Spotify. Not anymore. Here's what's going on.

Why is Young upset?

His protest came after dozens of doctors and scientists wrote an open letter to Spotify, complaining about Rogan's decision to have a podcast discussion with Dr. Robert Malone, an infectious disease specialist who has been banned from Twitter for spreading misinformation on COVID-19. Malone has become a hero in the anti-vaccination community.

Saying Spotify was complicit in spreading misinformation, Young told the company that it could have his music or Rogan's podcast — "not both." Spotify agreed to remove his music from the service.

Is the protest spreading?

Slowly. Joni Mitchell said she was standing in solidarity and also asked for her music to be removed. So did Nils Lofgren, a guitarist who plays in one of Young's backing bands, Crazy Horse, and also with Bruce Springsteen. Podcaster Brene Brown also said she was halting new podcasts without saying exactly why.

The rock band Belly put the message "Delete Spotify" in the background of its Spotify page, but you could still stream their music. Pulling music off Spotify isn't necessarily easy — often it's the record company, not the artist, who controls that.

Spotify dominates the marketplace. It had 31% of the 524 million worldwide music stream subscriptions in the second quarter of 2021, more than double that of second-place Apple Music, according to Midia Research. Spotify is not always popular with musicians, many of whom complain that it doesn't pay them enough for their work.

"Spotify has a huge amount of cultural capital that is itself power," says Midia Research's Mark Mulligan. "And that is what at risk if more artists essentially tried to push their fans to other places."

While losing Young and Mitchell may be a psychic blow, what would really matter is if a more current artist takes up the cause. Everyone in Spotify's top 10 list of most-streamed artists, led by Drake's 44 billion, are from past the turn of the century, with the possible exception of Eminem, who first became popular in 1999.

For those artists, and for Spotify, taking a stand like Young's would have much more serious financial consequences.

Why choose Rogan over Young?

Music accounts for the vast majority of Spotify's revenue, but Rogan represents its future.

Spotify reportedly paid more than $100 million to license Rogan's podcast, its most popular. He's the centerpiece of the company's strategy to become an audio company rather than just a music company. In the long term, Spotify has more control over potential revenue from podcasts than it does for music, Mulligan says.

The Swedish company is gunning to be the premiere podcasting platform, investing hundreds of millions of dollars since 2019 to buy podcast companies like Gimlet and Anchor, and sign top hosts like Rogan and Dax Shepard.

Spotify was set to overtake Apple last year as the biggest podcast platform in the United States, the world's largest market, by number of listeners, according to the research firm eMarketer.

Popular podcasters, particularly the outspoken ones, are likely to be watching this protest very closely to see if Spotify will stick up for the right to speak freely.

What is Spotify doing to quiet the protests?

The company announced that it would add a warning before all podcasts that discuss COVID-19, directing listeners to factual information on the pandemic from scientists and public health experts. It did not discuss Rogan specifically.

Spotify has shown more transparency in the past few days than it ever has about how it deals with questionable content, and the new policy is a good first step, says John Wihbey, a Northeastern University professor and specialist in emerging technologies.

Yet it's not clear that anyone has effectively dealt with the issue of misinformation spread through podcasts, Wihbey says. Will Rogan's audience actually listen to an advisory and then hunt down other COVID-19 information?

"This could be just window-dressing," he says.

Rogan spoke publicly for the first time late Sunday, saying he's sorry his critics feel the way they do, and it wasn't his intention to upset anyone or spread misinformation. He said he likes to have conversations with people who offer different perspectives, and said that some things once considered misinformation — that cloth masks were not good at protecting against COVID-19, for example — are now accepted.

But he said he could do a better job having people who dispute controversial opinions like Malone's on faster so his listeners will hear the different perspective.

The calculus for Spotify can change if the protest snowballs, says Colin Stutz, news director at Billboard magazine. "I think they just ride this out and hope that it goes away," he said.

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Associated Press correspondents Kristin M. Hall and Tali Arbel contributed to this report.

Barry Manilow responded to online reports that he is leaving Spotify.

"I recently heard a rumor about me and Spotify," the singer said on Twitter.

People on social media claimed Manilow was leaving Spotify, following in the footsteps of Neil Young.

"I don’t know where it started, but it didn’t start with me or anyone who represents me," Manilow said.

Young took his music off the streaming service in protest.

He told the streaming service to choose him or "The Joe Rogan Experience," which has spread misinformation about COVID-19.

Spotify did not pull Rogan's podcast so Young had his music removed from the streaming service this week.

He thanked his record label for allowing him to take a stand.

"I want to thank my truly great and supportive record company Warner Brothers - Reprise Records, for standing with me in my decision to pull all my music from Spotify," he said.

Neil Young thanked his record label for standing with him after he decided to pull his music from Spotify over his stance on COVID-19.

"Before I told my friends at Warner Bros about my desire to leave the SPOTIFY platform, I was reminded by my own legal forces that contractually I did not have the control of my music to do that," Young said.

"I want to thank my truly great and supportive record company Warner Brothers - Reprise Records, for standing with me in my decision to pull all my music from Spotify," he added.

On Tuesday, Young wrote a letter to his managers and record label to remove his music from Spotify because of COVID-19 misinformation from "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast, which it hosts on the platform.

“They can have [Joe] Rogan or Young. Not both," the 76-year-old rocker said in his now-deleted letter.

Spotify began the process of removing Young's music on Wednesday.

"SPOTIFY has become the home of life threatening COVID misinformation. Lies being sold for money," he said.

In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, the streaming platform said they "have detailed content policies in place and we’ve removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to COVID since the start of the pandemic."

They added that they "regret Neil’s decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon."

However, it doesn't appear Young will be returning to Spotify. In fact, he's encouraging other artists to remove their music from the platform.

"I sincerely hope that other artists and record companies will move off the SPOTIFY platform and stop supporting SPOTIFY’s deadly misinformation about COVID," he said.

GREEN BAY, Wisc. — In his first public interview since testing positive for COVID-19, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers explained his decision not to get vaccinated and added that he's taking the unapproved drug Ivermectin for treatment.

Rodgers will miss Sunday's game against the Kansas City Chiefs after testing positive for COVID-19 earlier this week. Because he is unvaccinated, he is ineligible to return to team activities until Nov. 13, meaning his status for his team's game against the Seattle Seahawks is also in doubt.

"Big thanks to everybody who reached out to me, checked on me the last couple of days. Felt really good. Heard from some of the teammates, former teammates, coaches, organizations, friends," Rodgers said during his interview on the Pat McAfee Show Friday. "I realize I'm in the crosshairs of the woke mob right now. So before the final nail gets put in my cancel culture casket, I'd let to set the record straight on some of the blatant lies that have been out there about myself."

Rodgers confirmed that he is not vaccinated, despite telling reporters in August that he is "immunized" when asked if he had gotten his shots.

"First of all, I didn't lie in the initial press conference," Rodgers said. "During that time, it was a very — witch hunt was going on across the league. where everyone in the media so was concerned about who was vaccinated and who wasn't."

"At the time, my plan was to say, 'I've been immunized,'" he said. "It wasn't some sort of ruse or lie, it was the truth."

NFL Network reports that Rodgers received homeopathic treatment from his personal doctor in order to raise his antibody levels. Rodgers asked the NFL for an exemption from the vaccine due to those treatments, but the league declined to make an exception.

Below is a summary of the rest of Rodgers' interview.

• Rodgers said he has allergies to an ingredient in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, so he could not get those shots. That meant his only option was the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, but he was concerned about the clotting issues that caused the CDC to temporarily suspend its use earlier this year. The CDC has since allowed J&J shots to continue and said that the clotting issue was most commonly found in women. 
• Rodgers also said he was concerned about the vaccine's effect on his fertility. The CDC says there is no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines cause changes to a man's sperm characteristics or cause infertility. 
• He said the NFL and Packers knew he was unvaccinated. 
• He made the claim that NFL's COVID-19 rules are not based on science, which directly contradicts claims made by the NFLPA. He says he's tested every day as an unvaccinated player and says vaccinated teammates are not tested as frequently.
• He said he wears a mask when he works out and works out away from his teammates. He added that he followed every protocol except being unmasked during news conferences. He said he did not follow that rule because everyone else in the room is required to be vaccinated and masked.
• He said he had symptoms on Tuesday but is now feeling better.
• He said that Ivermectin and other alternative treatments were recommended to him by podcast host Joe Rogan. 
• He said he's the second unvaccinated player to test positive on the team. He said many others who are vaccinated have tested positive in the facility, perhaps referring to team staff.

The NFL says it has launched an investigation into the Green Bay Packers on their handling of the situation.

According to the NFL's COVID-19 policy, all players and staff who are not fully vaccinated for COVID-19 must wear masks at all times when inside a club's facility.

Unvaccinated Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 people — including players — are prohibited from gathering in groups of more than three outside of the club facilities or when traveling.

Only fully vaccinated members of Tier 1 and Tier 2 staff members may travel with the team.

Rodgers has been seen at several press conferences without a mask. Rules also say he shouldn't be traveling with the team, yet the Packers tweeted out photos of him traveling with the team to Arizona last week.

Rodgers was also seen in photos and videos at a Halloween party with other players last weekend, which is also prohibited.

The NFL says each team is individually responsible for enforcing COVID-19 protocols.

"The primary responsibility for enforcement of the Covid Protocols within Club facilities rests with each Club. Failure to properly enforce the protocols has resulted in discipline being assessed against individual Clubs in the past," the league said in a statement earlier this week. "The league is aware of the current situation in Green Bay and will be reviewing with the Packers."

This story was originally published by Scripps station TMJ4 in Milwaukee.