Netflix is known to be a pretty woke company, particularly in terms of the sort of content that it provides for its subscribers. woke companies produce shows like “Cuties”, not conservative or sane ones.
But, surprisingly, the company has recently come out in support of free speech, at least to a minor degree.
In fact, Netflix executive Ted Sarandos has sounded his support for freedom of speech and artistic expression in the wake of the similar controversies over Netflix hosting the recent Dave Chappelle and Ricky Gervais specials, both of which are non-PC.
Speaking to the New York Times in an interview, Sarandos first said that he supports comedians and recognizes that their work involves testing the limits of what’s acceptable, something that involves “crossing the line every once in a while.”
Continuing on that point and using it to sound his support for free speech, Sarandos said “I think it’s very important to the American culture generally to have free expression.”
Emphasizing that point and claiming that it means Netflix supports the right of everyone to speak and wants to offer programming to those of all viewpoints, Srandos then said:
“We’re programming for a lot of diverse people who have different opinions and different tastes and different styles, and yet we’re not making everything for everybody. We want something for everybody, but everything’s not going to be for everybody.”
Continuing his surprisingly pro-free speech statement, Sarandos defended Netflix’s decision to keep the Chapelle show up despite the outrage surrounding it, even going so far as to say that the decision “wasn’t hard” and even provided “the opportunity to put your principles to the test.”
Further defending the Chappelle decision, he then said:
“It was an opportunity to take somebody, like in Dave’s case, who is, by all measure, the comedian of our generation, the most popular comedian on Netflix for sure. Nobody would say that what he does isn’t thoughtful or smart. You just don’t agree with him.”
Also, noting his surprise at being supported by conservatives and attacked by leftists for supporting freedom of expression, along with why defending content in the US is important given the stricter content controls in certain regions of the world, Sarandos said:
“It used to be a very liberal issue, so it’s an interesting time that we live in. I always said if we censor in the U.S., how are we going to defend our content in the Middle East?”
What was unclear is how much of what he was saying was what he actually believed and how much was instead a ploy to bring back conservatives and other non-woke contingents, many of whom have been ditching the platform in droves over its perceived leftism, something that has carried a heavy financial penalty for the company.
Still, regardless of intent, it’s good to hear at least one corporate chief other than Elon start championing freedom of speech at a time when so much of the culture is pushing against that once-cherished right.
By: Gen Z Conservative, editor of GenZConservative.com. Follow me on Parler and Gettr.
This story syndicated with permission from Will, Author at Trending Politics