Mumford & Sons' Winston Marshall slams Joe Rogan Spotify controversy as ‘silencing’ free speech

Mumford & Sons' Winston Marshall slams Joe Rogan Spotify controversy as ‘silencing’ free speech
Winston Marshall FULL digi
Gareth Milner

By Gareth Milner


Published: 07/02/2022

- 07:56

'If someone the size of Rogan can be silenced...what is it like for young artists?'

Former Mumford & Sons member Winston Marshall tells GB News that Joe Rogan’s detractors in the Spotify controversy are attempting to silence free speech.

Speaking exclusively to GB News’ Andrew Doyle on the latest episode of Free Speech Nation, Mr Marshall said threats to boycott Spotify because of Joe Rogan “were an exercise of free speech”, adding that threats to leave if content remained on the platform showed that detractors “want [Rogan's] speech silenced”.


“If someone the size of Rogan, and he’s absolutely huge, can be silenced… what is it like for the young artists trying to create, it’s untenable.”

Winston Marshall
Winston Marshall
GB News

Mr Marshall slammed the White House for getting involved with the Joe Rogan Spotify controversy: “What do they call it, misinformation? Something the Biden era seems to use in the same way the Trump era used fake news.”

Going on to criticise the creative industries, Winston Marshall told GB News viewers that all communities are prone to “some degree of homogeneity” or “groupthink” and that while it was “forgivable” he said it wasn’t good.

“In the creative industries, usually on divisive topics, an orthodox stance is taken… on Brexit even though the country was pretty evenly split, the British music history was almost entirely in favour of the EU”, Mr Marshall said.

He said that some older stars had been against Brexit because they “had the resources that they could say what they want…this is what Tocqueville talked about in the tyranny of the majority.”

"I suspect younger artists on a topic like [Brexit] should probably keep shtum in case they were to face backlash."

You can watch Free Speech Nation with Andrew Doyle every Sunday at 7pm exclusively on GB News.

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