{"id":5985,"date":"2019-01-22T22:59:38","date_gmt":"2019-01-23T02:59:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=5985"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:52:28","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:52:28","slug":"netflixs-global-platform-finding-the-balance-between-censorship-and-access","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/netflixs-global-platform-finding-the-balance-between-censorship-and-access\/","title":{"rendered":"Netflix\u2019s Global Platform: Finding the Balance Between Censorship and Access"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As American companies expand into the markets of other\ncountries, they are tasked with learning how to adhere to those countries\u2019 laws\nand customs while preserving the integrity of their services and goals. For\ninstance, Google has come\nunder fire<\/a> for trying to release a version of their search\nengine in China that complied with Chinese censorship laws. Critics pointed to\nGoogle\u2019s decision in the past to withdraw their platform from China, and\ndecried Google\u2019s decision as hypoctitial and complicit with\nhuman rights violation<\/a>s. Google has defended their project,\nessentially saying that acquiescing to censorship laws was better than denying\nmillions of Chinese internet users from access to their platform. <\/p>\n\n\n

Recently, Netflix has also come under such scrutiny. Serving\n190 of the\nworld\u2019s 195 countries<\/a> — China is among the five countries in\nwhich Netflix is not yet offered — Netflix is among the world\u2019s leading\nstreaming services. With such a massively diverse base of subscribers, it is\ninevitable that Netflix would offer its services in countries that do not have\nthe same views on censorship and free speech as the United States. <\/p>\n\n\n

Saudi Arabia and India are two such nations.<\/p>\n\n\n

 Netflix pulled an episode<\/a> of \u201cPatriot Act With Hasan Minhaj\u201d after the Saudi Arabian government stated that the episode violated its cybercrime laws. The episode was critical of crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and questioned the United States\u2019 ties with the Saudi government following the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. <\/p>\n\n\n

With such a massively diverse base of subscribers, it is inevitable that Netflix would offer its services in countries that do not have the same views on censorship and free speech as the United States. dpri<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

 Netflix has also\nsigned a \u201cCode of Best Practices\u201d with respect to its content in India. The\ncompany, along with eight other media organizations, agreed to voluntarily ban\ncontent<\/a> that \u201cdeliberately and maliciously disrespects the\nnational emblem or national flag,\u201d offends \u201creligious sentiments of any class,\nsection, or community,\u201d \u201cpromotes or encourages terrorism and other forms of\nviolence against the State (of India) or its institutions,\u201d among others. <\/p>\n\n\n

In both instances, Netflix was widely criticized for its\ndecisions to regulate its content in these countries. As with Google, critics<\/a>\n— including from within the company — argued that Netflix\u2019s decisions yield\nto censorship laws and support governments that routinely violate human rights\nlaws. Netflix has maintained that it is simply complying with\nlocal laws<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n

In such situations, companies like Netflix face three options: either refuse to follow the laws of the nation in which it wants to offer its services and risk its platform being banned altogether; refuse to offer its platform in countries that heavily regulate media content and risk alienating entire populations from their services; or pull only the offending content from the censoring countries and be criticized for yielding to cenship laws. From the company\u2019s standpoint, the last option is the best middle ground. The offending content is still available in other nations and pulled from the country where it would violate media laws. Meanwhile, Netflix is still able to collect revenue from these countries, whose residents can still have access to the streaming service. In an increasingly globalized world, where American companies want foreign dollars, perhaps this is the only option. <\/p>\n\n\n

Mariah Ahmed, 21 January 2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As American companies expand into the markets of other countries, they are tasked with learning how to adhere to those countries\u2019 laws and customs while preserving the integrity of their services and goals. For instance, Google has come under fire for trying to release a version of their search engine in China that complied with …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5986,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5985"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5985"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6872,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5985\/revisions\/6872"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}