Joe Rogan has made bold claims about Twitter’s algorithm suppressing his content before Elon Musk’s acquisition of the platform. He stated that the billionaire’s purchase fundamentally altered the trajectory of human society. During an episode with guest Chris Williamson, the podcast host revealed significant changes to his social media reach following Musk’s takeover.
Rogan disclosed that his Twitter follower count experienced dramatic growth after Musk purchased the platform, gaining approximately five million followers over just a couple of months.
“Once Elon purchased Twitter, I gained like five million followers over the course of like a couple of months. I was like, ‘What’s going on?'” Rogan explained, suggesting his account might have been shadowbanned before the ownership change.
The comedian and podcaster described how his follower growth had mysteriously stalled during what he called “the dark days of woke,” beginning around 2014-2016.
“I think I had 7 million and it used to go up pretty steady and then somewhere during the woke days…it seems like from 16 on real censorship started really kicking into high gear,” Rogan stated, attributing the timing to the 2016 presidential election.
Most significantly, Rogan credited Musk’s acquisition with preventing a dystopian future of censorship. “When Elon purchased Twitter, and I don’t say this lightly, I think he changed the course of civilization. I really do,” Rogan declared. He argued that society was heading toward “this weird dystopian censorship complex” involving intelligence agencies contacting Twitter to ban users who weren’t spreading misinformation, but rather inconvenient truths.
Rogan cited the Twitter Files revelations, which showed intelligence agencies had contacted the platform to suppress certain voices. He pointed to the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story by the New York Post as a prime example of pre-Musk censorship of accurate information. “To stop that accurate story is wild. That is scary stuff,” he emphasized.
The podcast host expressed concern that without Musk’s intervention, such censorship would have accelerated rather than remained static.
