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By Alia Shoaib
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Former President Donald Trump's highly anticipated three-hour interview with Joe Rogan generated controversy among some supporters of the Republican presidential candidate, who have accused YouTube of censoring it.
The latest episode of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast was published on Friday and has already racked up 33 million views. It has quickly become one of the most viewed podcast appearances of the 2024 election cycle for either Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris.
When the video was initially uploaded to YouTube, it was "unlisted," meaning it could only be accessed through a direct link and wouldn't appear in search results or on the uploader's page.
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Rogan took to X, formerly Twitter, on Friday to clarify that it was unlisted due to a technical issue with Spotify.
"There is no issue with YouTube censoring the trump episode. It was just supposed to go live on both Spotify and YouTube at the same time and there was a glitch in Spotify's upload system and so we delisted the YouTube link until it's fixed. It should be fine now," Rogan wrote.
The video is no longer unlisted. Newsweek reached out to YouTube and Spotify for comment.
There have been further issues with the interview not appearing when searched for on YouTube, with users complaining that they had to manually go to the podcast channel's page to find it.
Rogan acknowledged the issue and responded by sharing the entire video in a post on X.
In a statement issued to Variety on Monday, YouTube said that it had "worked to resolve" the issue and that search results should soon start reflecting the fix.
"For some searches on Monday the original 3-hour interview didn't appear prominently," the statement reads. "Short excerpts uploaded by the Joe Rogan channel appeared, but we know it was frustrating for users looking to find the full video. We've worked to resolve this and viewers will begin seeing the full podcast in more YouTube search results soon."
Another concern raised by commenters on the YouTube video was that despite being highly viewed, it was not featured on YouTube's Trending page.
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YouTube's Trending page highlights new, well-viewed videos. According to guidelines published by YouTube's owner, Google, each featured video requires final approval from a dedicated staff.
Trending videos are selected by balancing several different factors, including their engagement levels, the diversity of their content, appeal to a wide range of viewers and lack of clickbait or misleading content.
Political videos can be featured in this section if they meet the platform's criteria.
YouTube also has thorough policies about election-related content, which include removing videos that spread election misinformation and elevating informative videos from authoritative sources.
It is unclear why YouTube did not feature Rogan's interview with Trump in the Trending section.
The former president's decision to take a break from the campaign trail to appear on the podcast just 11 days before the election underscores the power of Rogan's reach.
Rogan's podcast is the most popular on Spotify, according to the streaming player's charts. He has more than 14 million followers on the app, more than three times the amount of the second-most followed podcaster. His channel on YouTube boasts nearly 18 million followers, and his videos regularly rack up millions of views.
The two men appeared to have a good rapport during the wide-ranging interview, despite Rogan describing Trump as "an existential threat to democracy" two years ago.
During the mostly friendly interview, the pair discussed Trump's persistent and long-debunked claims about election fraud, aliens, and Trump's regrets about appointing "disloyal" people to his first cabinet that later turned on him.
Update 10/28/24, 11:29 p.m. ET: This article has been updated to include YouTube's statement.
Update 10/29/24, 05:57 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with further information.
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