One robin doesn’t mean spring has arrived. Similarly, one tech company squelching upstart lefty employees isn’t necessarily a sign the whole industry is going politically neutral but … one can hope.
Writing at The Daily Wire, Ryan Saavedra reports online content provider Netflix has made a positive move in that direction. Apparently the trigger was a disturbance caused by a group of its employees outraged by a Dave Chappelle routine making, among other things, transgender jokes.
The updated Netflix Culture memo includes a new section called “Artistic Expression” that states that it will not “censor specific artists or voices” even if employees consider the content “harmful.”
“If you’d find it hard to support our content breadth, Netflix may not be the best place for you,” the memo states, later adding that employees may be required to work on projects that they “perceive to be harmful” and that if they have a hard time accepting their work assignment, they might want to consider working somewhere else.
“Entertaining the world is an amazing opportunity and also a challenge because viewers have very different tastes and points of view. So we offer a wide variety of TV shows and movies, some of which can be provocative,” the new section reads, later adding, “we support the artistic expression of the creators we choose to work with” and that “we let viewers decide what’s appropriate for them, versus having Netflix censor specific artists or voices.”
Netflix reportedly fired the leader of a trans organization within the company last October who allegedly organized a walkout to protest the company backing Chappelle over his special “The Closer.”
Netflix takes a common sense point of view; it is hard to understand why it isn’t universal in the industry. Perhaps it will become so. When taking sides alienates half your potential customers, regardless of which side you take, doing so is impossible to justify on economic grounds.
