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Netflix CEO Reed Hastings isn’t backing down from the streamer’s controversial decision to pull an episode of Hasan Minhaj‘s Patriot Act that was critical of the Saudi royal family.
“We’re not in the news business,” Hastings told attendees at the New York Times Dealbook Conference in New York City on Wednesday, according to our sister site Variety. “We’re not trying to do ‘truth to power.’ … We can accomplish more by being entertainment and trying to influence the way people live, rather than being another news channel.”
Minhaj, an alum of The Daily Show, criticized Saudi crown prince Mohammad Bin Salman and his alleged involvement in the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in an Patriot Act episode that debuted last year. But after receiving a letter from the Saudi government claiming that the episode violated the country’s anti-cybercrime law, Netflix pulled the episode from its service.
The Patriot Act host addressed the removal of the episode himself in a February episode: “This isn’t about just censoring one episode of a TV show. It’s about the precedent… Because as tech companies keep expanding, they’re going to keep running into more vague censorship laws — laws that can allow governments to pull any content at any time.” And he’ll have a chance to respond to Hastings soon enough: Patriot Act returns with new episodes this Sunday.
Yeah, no. This isn’t okay. Time to cancel. There are many streamers to choose from these days.
then you dont live in the real world. jas.
No we live in the real world that doesn’t support censorship brought on by the terrorist ‘leader’ of Saudi Arabia.
I guess we all forgot where the money for the 9-11 attacks came from and 85% of the terrorists?
their tons of censorship in the usa tribune ent i can name . also its by law illegal to protest on near a federal building.. my guess you never read the add on on park bill that was past a long while back.
their countries do it to. but you oddly forgot to mention that. uk,germany etc.
You don’t know what censorship is. Even if there is a law banning protests near a federal building, that’s not censoring protests, it is restricting certain areas.
And this alleged censorship in the US that you speak of is what this is about. But one thing you cant censor in the US is criticism of the leaders, which clearly isn’t the case in Saudi Arabia.
I don’t get what you point is? So the USA has illegal censorship laws it’s ok? It’s not.
C’mon. The current US President is very friendly with the current government of Saudi Arabia. Or did we also forget that?
And Bush sent the Saudis out of the country after 9-11 when all other planes were ground. Obama sold them hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons too. This isn’t just a Trump issue. Not everything is a Trump issue.
again this from a company that hired the obama’s
…and?
“We can accomplish more by being entertainment…”
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Might want to start by making sure your content is well… entertaining. Also, try not canceling the entertainment that many people enjoy. It’s seems you’re more concerned about pumping out as much content as possible rather than spending the effort it took to release the kind of content that originally put your name in people’s mouths and thier money in your banks.
Or at the very least, don’t produce news-style shows. I don’t understand this argument. They don’t want to be in the news/commentary business, but they’re investing in news/commentary programming?
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But regardless of business decisions or whatever, this particular decision just feels so wrong. The brutality of what happened to a Jamal Khashoggi… They’re kowtowing the government that authorized that brutality. If you don’t want to be in the news business, that’s totally fine. But to silence a production that exposes what happened… It’s just morally wrong.
That’s very true as well. I was going to mention that as too but that one particular part of thier comment I quoted just got stuck in my craw that I had to type something.
It seems like Netflix had no problem during production but as soon as the Holders of the American Oil Supply*, I mean Saudi family, got wind and threatened some convoluted legalese they too had a problem with it. It’s a joke.
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*Yes I’m aware that the USA gets a large portion of oil from Canada and South America but we have been and still are beholden to the ME, especially the Saudis, for oil.
its not even that any more. they invest a ton in media. but have so many sub companies
I am aware that we are less dependent on them for oil but it hasn’t changed the impact they have over our prices, see September, the fact that some of our states import the majority of thier oil from SA, and they are still our #2 supplier. Not mention that many of our politicians have financial investments in thier oil companies. That impacts our law making process. So while yes they are moving to other areas (media) to gain the global and American control they used to have, I’m not buying the myth of American energy independence. Not yet.
Well said.
Yes pretty much all censorship is bad imho. However, from a business standpoint is this really a battle worth fighting. I doubt Patriot Act is a big subscriber magnet. No offense, I do like Hasan. As others mentioned I just don’t think streaming has figured out how to do a daily or weekly talk or “news” show b/c with the 24 hour news cycle if you don’t watch it right away then its obsolete.
They aren’t in the news business, except when they commission political documentaries and hire political commentators to create content. Hastings is being disingenous, to say the least. I saw the episode in question. There wasn’t anything in it that other political commentators and news outlets weren’t also saying at the time. The Washington Post was saying much worse about the Saudi royal family. I don’t know why Netflix would be beholden to Saudi Arabia, but they seem to be. Maybe the Saudis are silent investors?
This might explain why Barack Obama warned against cancel culture last week. He’s afraid of being canceled for teaming up with Netflix and their Saudi bedmates.
I’m pretty sure it was only pulled from the Saudi Arabia site. The episode, which aired 10/28/18, is available in the U.S.