Netflix is being criticized heavily for bowing to demands from Saudi Arabia to shut down speech from a comedian that criticized them over the Kashoggi execution:
Human rights watchdog Amnesty International criticized the streaming service Netflix on Wednesday for removing an episode of comedian Hasan Minhaj’s “Patriot Act” in Saudi Arabia after the kingdom complained it violated an anti-cybercrime law.
“By bowing to the Saudi Arabian authorities’ demands, Netflix is in danger of facilitating the Kingdom’s zero-tolerance policy on freedom of expression and assisting the authorities in denying people’s right to freely access information,” Samah Hadid, Middle East Director of Campaigns at Amnesty International, said in a statement.
The episode, originally put online on Oct. 28, discussed the death of Washington Post columnist and Virginia resident Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
The show criticized Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over his kingdom’s crackdown on dissent. Netflix said in a statement that it removed the episode after receiving a legal complaint from the country.
“We strongly support artistic freedom worldwide and removed this episode only in Saudi Arabia after we had received a valid legal request — and to comply with local law,” a Netflix spokesperson said in a statement.
BUT, as is typical with the internet, if you try to stamp out some speech you don’t like, that just brings more attention to it than it had in the first place.
This just seems like a bad idea for Netflix when even liberals are yelling at them for cutting out Minhaj’s comedy. And it’s a bad deal for Saudi Arabia too – now the clip will gain much more notoriety than it would have otherwise.