Netflix pulls episode of Patriot Act from Saudi Arabia after government complaint
Aux Features Hasan Minhaj
In an unprecedented move by Netflix, the streaming giant has removed an episode of Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj in Saudi Arabia after the country’s government sent a takedown request last month, The Financial Times reports. The episode, which originally aired in October, finds the host critiquing Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, as well as the country’s relationship with the United States. “Now would be a good time to reassess our relationship with Saudi Arabia. And I mean that as a Muslim, and as an American,” Minhaj says at the top of the episode.
The episode, which is still streaming on Netflix outside of Saudi Arabia and, as of this writing, still available in full on YouTube, was filmed in the wake of the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who intelligence officials believe was killed on orders from the crowned prince. In the episode, Minhaj also touches on the ongoing war in Yemen and the financial influence Saudi Arabia wields over American tech companies.
Netflix stands by its decision, saying it’s simply complying to the country’s local laws. “We strongly support artistic freedom worldwide and only removed this episode in Saudi Arabia after we had received a valid legal request — and to comply with local law,” they said in a statement.
Saudi Arabia was named by the Committee to Protect Journalists as the third most censored country in the world. The committee also highlights how journalists have been suppressed more and more under the reign of Prince Mohammed, who the government has attempted to posit as an agent of progressive change and reform. Per The New York Times, the law in question prohibits the “production, preparation, transmission or storage of material impinging on public order, religious values, public morals and privacy” on the internet. The resonance here is deeply felt in an era where the U.S. president routinely decries his critics in the press as “the enemy of the people.”
“There was a lot of discussion in my family about not doing it,” Minhaj said of the episode in a December interview with The Atlantic. “I’ve just come to personal and spiritual terms with what the repercussions are.”
Minhaj has yet to respond.
51 Comments
Weak move Netflix
What is your suggested move then? They can’t just say no. They can either follow the local laws, or they can stop doing business in the country entirely. If you’re suggesting the latter I’m all for that, but since this was announced I’ve seen a lot of people acting like just not taking it down was a viable option.
The latter is the preferable move, at least in my opinion. Is KSA market share something Netflix should give much attention? I don’t know, but I would say that a subscription service operating out of a Western liberal democracy would tend to skew liberal and democratic in their selection on content. Is there a reason archaic places like KSA want American entertainment if they’re so displeased with what it actually is?
Eh. American entertainment is global entertainment, that’s why they want it. I mean, there’s a reason that successful Hollywood movies gross huge numbers worldwide. So people will watch Netflix in most countries that it’s offered to even if some specific subsets of its content don’t appeal to people there. Stepping outside the Netflix sphere, a lot of countries eat up Game of Thrones but probably don’t give a shit about John Oliver’s show, both HBO productions, but foreign companies would buy rights to the entire HBO library if it gave them the ability to air game of Thrones to their audience. Even countries with their own large film industries like India and China tend to consume a lot of Hollywood media alongside their own. We’re actually kind of the exception in that we don’t consume a lot of non-US content. From a KSA standpoint they’re also trying to superficially westernize both to get a better seat on the world stage and just for the royal family to feel more important on the world stage. Think Peter the Great in Russia and dumb shit like the beard tax. It’s a blow to their egos when they have to confront that they’re only a big fish in their own relatively small pond.
This is an interesting perspective. The phrase “superficially westernize” should be used more, because it’s spot on. I would add that places like KSA have basically destroyed any art their people would’ve created with their religious fascism, so importing is pretty much their only option, but even then, something as innocuous as “Dancing with the Stars” would be considered Haram.
There must be enough money in the market and enough comfort in the lack of backlash to make it worth it. After all “Dr Strange” made a Tibetan character white to avoid pissing off China and nobody cared about that.
You also have to recognize that not everyone has the same moral evaluations and opinions that you do. When WWE had a women’s match in the middle east, some people were delighted and saw it as progress. Others were besides themselves because the women were still treated differently and had to cover up substantially compared to their normal attire. Same complaints when they had their shows in Saudi Arabia. Some like myself find it unacceptable that they endorse that regime at all. Others see it as an avenue of change. Neither one of those stances are necessarily wrong though. Relative to your Dr Strange example… Maybe a lot of people didn’t care because they just don’t care about minority casting the way you think they should. Maybe some care but don’t find that particular example to be egregious. People have different strengths of views on whitewashing that may have nothing to do with their “comfort in the lack of backlash.” I for example found the casting for the Last Airbender to be rather shitty in that perspective, but I’m sure I disagree with many of the people who hold my same position on that movie when it comes to say, Ghost in the Shell. TL;DR you’re reading too much into the Dr Strange thing. Most people just don’t see that as a big deal regardless of why it was done.
Yes. We agree. Most people dont care about these kinds of things, and Netflix is not worried about the backlash.Im not sure why you felt the need to remind me that people dont always share my moral values. Did you think I was toddler with advanced typing skills?
they can stop doing business in the country entirely.
Fuck Saudi Arabia.
They can say “just say no.” It would then be up to the KSA government to stop Netflix from doing business in their country.
They should leave it up and force the Kingdom to block Netflix. They control the ISPs throughout the country so it’s definitely possible. That way the King can explain to the billionaire princes why they can’t watch Bird Box. It’s not like it’s a marketplace where rich people can spend more. We’re all paying the same price.
“It’s not like it’s a marketplace where rich people can spend more.” I bet it absolutely is. Pretty sure the billionaire princes have carte blanche do whatever they like behind their own closed doors as long as they play the game in public. That only stops when they do something *else* to annoy the supreme leader. No doubt there are plenty of VPNs in use there, but some working-class guy is going to get in more trouble for having one than His Highness Whatever.
Later that week, Minhaj gets a call from the Saudi ambassador requesting he stop by the embassy to ‘talk’ it over and ‘smooth’ relations.
I hope they don’t give him too close a shave. I like him scruffy
YES.
Now this folks is an actual example of censorship.
Is the episode still available in Saudi Arabia via YouTube or other unblocked sites just not directly from Netflix? I’m really looking forward, once the dust clears and if the world is still around, to an analysis of the moves between Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Russia with respect to the Khashoggi affair. Turkey plays it up (seemingly as Russia’s cat’s paw), Trump refuses to play it up taking the Saudi side, then Trump does Turkey’s bidding on Syria (again seemingly Russia) and loses Mattis, was that Cheeto Benito’s version of a make-up call? Not to mention the dark hilarity of Turkey and Russia calling out the torture and murder of dissidents.
It’s still available on youtube, last time I checked.
It’s still available on youtube, last time I checked.
so nice you said it twice. Dumb question: do the people of Saudi Arabia have unrestricted access to YouTube?
Probably not, at least without a VPN or other sort of censorship-avoidance mechanism.But I’m sure MBS can still watch it.
That’s what I thought but at least one person online claimed they were in Saudi Arabia and could still watch it. Wait. MbS is that you???
Well, as I said, I’m sure there are workarounds for state censorship – we know there are, as seen in Iran, China and Egypt, for instance – but I’m more interested in knowing that you are in communication with MBS 🙂
he did say he wants to meet up and chill but not to tell anybody where because they’ll want all the cupcakes and soda he’s bringing, see you in a few hours
Just make sure the location isn’t an embassy.
well…not technically…you see…it has suites?
Even if it does, I’d still be wary.
oh garfield would never advertise for a place that would do that
Netflix stands by its decision, saying it’s simply complying to the country’s local laws. “We strongly support artistic freedom worldwide and only removed this episode in Saudi Arabia after we had received a valid legal request — and to comply with local law,” they said in a statement. “We strongly support artistic freedom worldwide, except when we absolutely don’t.” KSA delivers no benefit to the global community. If I were a rich man with “fuck you” money (which I’m not and do not have) I would revel in not doing business in countries which are ostensible religious monarchies.
Unfortunately most of the rich men with that kind of fuck you money got it by happily doing business with awful countries.
I think you’re completely correct. Even Google and Apple are cowing to China to give them greater abilities to keep their people in check.
BREAKING: business likes making money
Minhaj and his message deserve far better than this. There are a lot of ways to both comply with and demonstrate disagreement with a law. Netflix might have replaced the episode itself with a single still image of the following words: “The content that was to be shown here has been removed at the behest of the Saudi government. Although we at Netflix avow that every part of this content is factual, accurate, and of critical value to the people of every nation, we have no legal choice but to comply with the Saudi Arabian government’s directive to censor this episode. We deeply apologize that although we are able to provide this factual information elsewhere in the world, we do not have the freedom to offer the same service to the people of Saudi Arabia.” Instead they may as well put, “We choose to take a stand for the truth for exactly as long as it proves to be easy and profitable.”
The problem with your wording is that it “breaks” the Saudi law exactly as much as the episode does, i.e. even lukewarm criticism of the government is a “threat to public order”. By that standard, any version of the truth will be illegal.If Netflix were going to do that, they might as well politely refuse to take the episode down.
OR, people could use their adult brains and think, “Ah, this is just a corporation doing what corporation do, and follow local law. Too bad but no biggie.” instead of acting like free speech has been perverted in a country where there is none or that Netflix is not a multinational that has to balance its content to not offend local laws as well as local taste.
Maybe people could do both. For instance, I’m fully capable of thinking, as you wrote, “this is just a corporation doing what corporation do,” but I also like to consider that we as consumers may have more power than to shrug when a corporation tries to cash in on a political issue and then cash back out when the issue gets political. Separately, I’d encourage you not to mix disagreements and insults. It’s not easy to either disagree productively OR to insult wittily. Both at once is just a bad idea.
Also, I generally think the people of Saudi Arabia and us are better with them continuing to get Netflix and watch the rest of the episodes of the show, all of which support the same “question authority” stance just without mentioning Saudi Arabia. I think it’s fine to give Netflix a hard time about it so they think twice about giving in next time and know they’re going to have hell to pay if they do it here.
Remember when every centrist jackass from Jeff Bezos to The Rock to Bill fucking Gates met with MBS on his American tour last year and everyone was hailing him as some progressive bastion? Of course, this was three years into his genocidal campaign against Yemen (which we gave a lovely nod to under the Obama administration!) and nobody gave two shits until MBS made the mistake of killing a journalist, the only kind of person another journalist could be bothered to care that much about. Within weeks you finally saw Jake Tapper suddenly give a fuck about Yemeni kids getting massacred in a school bus, despite the fact that thousands of kids had already died and nobody really cared about it except for us crazy leftists.
I can’t remember who it was, but there was an interview on NPR with a Middle East scholar who basically went back to the 1950s to show that the U.S. has had the same reaction to every new Saudi leader. It always starts with, “He is more sympathetic to Western values and really is reform-minded. If we just give him more support, he’ll totally get rid of all of the repressive elements in Saudi society.” And the new leader always ends up being just as oppressive as the one before him. And this interview was maybe 6 months before the Khashoggi incident.
That seems to be the story of the US propping up right-wing despots in the Middle East and basically everywhere. Same shit over and over and over and over since WWI ended and we decided to start meddling in their governments.
“We”? Who is “we”?You mean every so-called developed nation since before the Industrial Revolution? Nearly all the Western powers and the Russian Imperial, then the USSR, now the Russian state, has meddled and is meddling in their governments.Who do you think is propping up Assad in Syria right now? That’s right, your boss Putin and the country of Russia. Spare us all your bullshit.
I think it’s a heavy pull to say the murderer who lets women outside and into cinemas and cars is exactly as oppressive as the murderer before him who didn’t.
ok but you can see how criticizing obama and the media for facilitating genocide in yemen makes you a sexist, misogynist pie in the sky bernie bro purity test immature extremist radical don’t you? it’s people like you that got trump elected dont let the perfect be the enemy of the etcedited to add that you’re a russian bot
I see you too have read the Splinter comments section.
I’m afraid I disagree. I’m assuredly not a leftist, nor are many of the people I consider thoughtful talking heads, and we’ve been clamoring since 9/11 that KSA is pretty much a reified version of the IS. Prior to KSA even attacking Houthis in Yemen, the crown did everything they could to stop the formation of Yemen. The House of Saud offers nothing to civilized people around the globe. Btw, when I saw The Rock caping for KSA I couldn’t hide my disgust and my friends didn’t see what the big deal was. I tried to explain to them that they should imagine The Rock caping for the Ayatollah and see if that worked for them.
Yeah, wouldn’t want to upset Mr. Bone Saw of Saudi Arabia—the country which provided fifteen of the seventeen 9/11 hijackers…. Oh no, wouldn’t want that.
I put this in the Gizmodo post too, but I’m not grayed here. Short of not doing business with Saudi Arabia or China, companies don’t have a lot of options. Corporations are pretty amoral creatures, usually by necessity.
“The U.S. will have the last laugh – global warming is going to make it hot as Hell over there.” – MILO WEAMS • PUBLIC RESTROOM REVIEWER
the country’s government sent a takedown requestBecause he dismembers a member of the media on air?
As someone on Twitter pointed out: Project Gutenberg was taken to court last year for hosting books that were still under copyright in Germany. A publisher wanted them to remove the books from the site entirely, claiming that he was losing sales. They responded by telling Germany to get fucked and blocking the whole country’s access.It’s just a thought, Netflix.
The real question is: why is Netflix even available in Saudi Arabia? All their shows and movies have women and infidels in them.