One of the Left’s favorite “fact-checking” tactics is to rate a conservative assertion as “missing context.” The assertion is usually true and usually valid, but rather than let speech stand or make an actual argument against it, the “fact-checkers” label it “missing context” and thus hurt the person or organization making that statement.

To add insult to injury, those rules don’t apply to leftists. When a video montage came out of podcaster Joe Rogan repeatedly using the N-word, it was so blatantly missing context that it should have been laughed off the Internet. Instead, it was used for its intended purpose — twisting Spotify’s arm into canceling Rogan, which seems to be all the rage these days among aging musicians who’ve become the enemies of free speech in a vain last attempt at relevance.

Nevertheless, Spotify stood by its $100 million man. Mostly.

“There are no words I can say to adequately convey how deeply sorry I am for the way The Joe Rogan Experience controversy continues to impact each of you,” Spotify Technology SA Chief Executive Daniel Ek told employees Sunday. “I think it’s important you’re aware that we’ve had conversations with Joe and his team about some of the content in his show, including his history of using some racially insensitive language.”

“Following these discussions and his own reflections, he chose to remove a number of episodes from Spotify,” Ek added. “He also issued his own apology over the weekend. While I strongly condemn what Joe has said and I agree with his decision to remove past episodes from our platform, I realize some will want more. And I want to make one point very clear — I do not believe that silencing Joe is the answer.”

He also said that “canceling voices is a slippery slope.” Indeed it is. Even more slippery when it’s done over mendacious efforts like this shameful video montage, which was first posted by some singer this author has never heard of who canceled herself on Spotify to protest Rogan’s free speech.

So here’s the rub. Ek “condemn[ed] what Joe has said,” but in most cases in the video it wasn’t what Joe said. Rogan was quoting someone else, usually someone on the Left, or he was talking about how the word is used, not using it as his own word.

We’re not defending the use of the N-word in the slightest to say it was common vernacular for decades. It still is in the black community. Lyndon Johnson famously used the word to tout how his “Great Society” would have blacks voting Democrat for decades. Johnson is still revered on the Left.

Rogan offered his “deepest, sincerest” apologies for comments he called “regretful and shameful.” He explained that there’s “a lot of s**t from the old episodes of the podcast that I wish I hadn’t said, or had said differently.” That’s true of everyone who uses words for a living — especially those who speak extemporaneously. He did argue that the video was “made of clips taken out of context of me of 12 years of conversations on my podcast, and it’s all smushed together,” but even so, he said, “It looks f***ing horrible, even to me.”

Indeed, that was the point of the video.

Rogan also hit on something unique about this particular word: “If a White person uses it, it’s racist, it’s toxic. But a Black person can use it and it can be a punchline, it can be a term of endearment, it can be lyrics to a rap song, it can be a positive affirmation.” He called it “not my word to use.”

That apparently includes quoting other people.

In the end, this is nothing more than the fascist intolerance of the Left. Rogan says some good and thoughtful things, and he says some really dumb stuff, as he himself acknowledges. He’s an entertainer.

Commentator Ben Shapiro perhaps summed it up best: “Nobody targeting Joe Rogan right now gives two damns about anything he’s said in the past. This is all just an opportunity for activists to destroy a guy who doesn’t carry water for those with institutional power, and whose audience dwarfs their own. It is that simple.”

Everyone ought to be careful with their words because words are powerful. But what the modern Left is after isn’t care with words; it’s control over you and everyone else.

Update: Rumble has offered Rogan $100 million to switch from Spotify, and it guarantees no censorship.