Joe Rogan Edits Podcast, Apologizes After Promoting Hoax Tweet

A recent episode of popular podcast The Joe Rogan Experience saw Joe Rogan fall for a badly photoshopped hoax, as Rogan and his guest, former Evergreen professor Bret Weinstein, discussed a fake tweet about the coronavirus vaccine, citing it as an example of “ideological capture at its highest level.”

The fake tweet, falsely attributed to Dr. Natalia Solenkova, an intensive care doctor based in Florida, read:

“I will never regret the vaccine. Even if it turns out I injected actual poison and have only days to live. My heart and is was in the right place. I got vaccinated out of love, while antivaxxers did everything out of hate. If I have to die because of my love for the world, then so be it. But I will never regret or apologize for it.”

The fake tweet spread like wildfire over anti-vaccine Twitter, and inspired an avalanche of harassment directed at Solenkova, who has since made her account private.

For any experienced Twitter user, the tweet makes for an unconvincing hoax; the date is formatted incorrectly, and the character count is expanded by 54, beyond Twitter’s limit of 280; it is unclear if Rogan or his team attempted to fact-check the tweet before discussing it on the podcast.

Rogan and Weinstein, however, seemed shocked by the absurdity of the fake tweet, and discussed it at length, with Rogan saying:

“It’s also a fascinating perspective that this person claims to be about love, but has the most uncharitable view of people who didn’t get vaccinated, that everyone got anti-vaxx out of hate … When I see something like that, I’m like, that is ideological capture at its highest level.”

After being informed of his mistake, Rogan took to Twitter to clarify that the episode had been removed, with the offending segment edited out, before being re-uploaded onto Spotify. Rogan wrote:

“I was informed last night that this tweet is fake. The show was already out, so we initially decided to post a notice saying we got tricked, then later thought it best to just delete it from the episode. My sincere apologies to everyone, especially the person who got hoaxed.”

This isn’t the first time that Rogan has been fooled by an easily debunked piece of “fake news.” Despite being a firm believer in climate change, Rogan famously spread misinformation about deadly wildfires in California being deliberately ignited by leftists. Upon discovering the truth, Rogan admitted that he had been “very irresponsible,” having not researched the story before broadcasting it to his audience.

Rogan promised that the incident would not be repeated, but that would prove not to be the case, as Rogan recently spread a ridiculous urban legend about a student who “identified as a cat” and demanded that a litter box be installed in their school’s bathroom. Obviously, the story was a complete hoax, a manifestation of transphobic panic, which Rogan later admitted.

Recently, an amusing video of Rogan getting emotional went viral, as the podcaster describes a YouTube video which he believed depicted a man fighting his son in a boxing match, but was fact-checked in real time, with Rogan seemingly having done no research beyond the misleading, clickbait headline of the video.

After learning that he had been duped, again, Rogan said, sheepishly, “I’m such a sucker.”

Considering the incredible popularity and broad reach of his platform, it is frustrating that Rogan continues to spread misinformation, seemingly by mistake, like a Facebook-addicted uncle whose worldview is shaped by Minions memes.

After all, there are so many insidious influencers out there who willfully spread misinformation, and Rogan appears to be inadvertently helping them; the Joe Rogan Experience needs to hire a fact checker, who can read beyond headlines.