Articles like this make me angry. Suddenly its a big deal because Saudi Arabia was thrust into the news for the Khashoggi murder. It has always been a cultural norm for certain kinds of censorship to occur regularly and the subjects of censorship differ by nation.
I am an American who is currently living in Kuwait and spent about 3.5 years between Kuwait and Afghanistan.
In Kuwait you do not talk negatively about religion. This actually against the law and is largely how Kuwait avoids religious strife that infects other regions. In many nations here you don't talk negatively in public about the current national politics, though the acceptable tone differs by nation. In nearly all the nations here sex does not belong in any form of media. All matters of sex are private and to be kept within the household. Cursing in public is also generally bad. The allowed dress of people in media differs by nation as well.
In many areas they play American movies in public theaters, but will edit out parts that violate the local cultural norms. Remember that Sex In The City 2 was filmed in UAE, but I don't believe it was available in the cinema there.
None of this is new. The cultural challenge that nations face here is how to become modern without losing their unique identify and cultural legacies. The different countries are evolving on this matter at different speeds and prefer to accommodate for various different demands local.
The NYT picks and chooses its targets to further what it thinks is correct cause. I won't wait for them to condemn Venezuelan Censorship or the regime with the same vigor.
>Suddenly its a big deal because Saudi Arabia was thrust into the news for the Khashoggi murder.
Which was only in the news because he was a journalist. Journalists care when other journalists get wronged. If it was you or I that got sawed up it might have been a footnote on some columnist's hobby blog.
Just look at the situation in Yemen. Nobody cared enough to talk about even though what it looks like is one of the worst humanitarian crisis of the 21st century. 1 journalist was tortured and murdered, and suddenly everyone was up in arms about it.
It's partly because he was a journalist, but also because state-sponsored murder in that state's own consulate is rare. More typically, there's at least a thin veneer of plausible deniability.
Sorry, either stop trading with these countries or acquiesce to their demands. You cannot have both. Just as a private citizen cannot just waltz into one of these countries and do as they please "because I can do this at home" why should we expect a private company to do as such?
Simply put, if our government will not why do we feel we should hold private companies to a higher standard?
> Sorry, either stop trading with these countries or acquiesce to their demands.
Except Netflix isn't "trading with Saudi Arabia". Netflix is trying to sell subscriptions to Saudi individuals, and it is the Saudi government that is trying to enforce censorship. 2 completely distinct groups.
Yeah, but one of the main roles of pretty much every government is regulating what is sold in their markets.
(Were this a less autocratic regime,I would have said "governments are just people", but I take your point on the government of SA being largely disjoint from the citizens)
These are profit-seeking enterprises, not political activist organizations. I don't know why more people confuse the two. This is a rabbit hole companies need to be very careful about going down.
Besides, this whole thing is irony of the highest order. We scream bloody murder about Saudi Arabia explicitly censoring a comedian, meanwhile in the US we have an arguably worse form of implicit censorship where if you make an offensive (and harmless) joke, a bunch of noisy leftist maniacs go into high gear to end your career.
We expect individuals to behave morally. Companies are richer, more powerful, more organised and more capable than individuals, so why should we hold them to a lower standard of behaviour?
Human society of any sort is only possible because our species evolved beyond purely selfish behaviour to co-operate for the greater good. Modern civilisation is reliant on the majority of individuals following moral codes, instilled by cultural, religious and familial institutions and enforced by community action. We do not allow "profit-seeking" as a pass for acting immorally.
If companies want to enjoy the rights given to individuals within our societies, such as freedom to operate, equal treatment and protection under the law, etc. Then they also need to be bound by the same moral codes that allows successful co-operation between individual people. Allowing companies to have full legal rights while exempting them from moral responsibility is just as unfair and dangerous as it is to give a certain class of human the freedom to ignore moral norms without consequence.
They're only exclusively profit seeking if owners/controllers agree for it to be so. To me it seems extremely strange to put financial profit above humanity, or above morality.
As a country you can apply standards to companies which are operating in your legal framework. Germany for example prosecutes (German and probably foreign) companies which bribe in other countries. Siemens was a big example in the 90s.
Same applies to free speech. The US could apply a law to their companies but they do not (because free unbound capitalism). I ignore anything related to national security in this argument :).
why can’t we have both? why can’t we use our companies to spread proper values? isn’t this the same backlash of google going into china? would netflix also help MBS chop up journalists or oppress women?
Just because morality is subjective doesn’t mean there aren’t rights that we must deem fundamental and defend globally.
This knee jerk relativism is getting old. Just because morality exists outside of systems of formal logic, doesnt make it any less important. It is still up for debate.
Nobody is forcing Saudis to watch a Netflix show they find morally repugnant -- the Saudi government prevented its citizens from seeing something politically sensitive.
My issue with your participation in this discussion is that you think you are moving the discussion forward when you post a less-wrong link to support your statement about moral relativism.
And you maintain the same sense of correctness even as it is explained to you that your argument is regressive and unhelpful.
I posted exactly two comments on this, one saying that there are no "proper values", and one asking what they would look like if there were.
Commenters mistaking this for me condoning what Netflix did or making some broader assumption are just that, mistaken.
You did answer my question with an example, but I chose not to reply because I thought that if two sentences can be misconstrued so badly, more sentences wouldn't make anything better, but, since you replied, I will ask you:
> All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights
If a woman decides that she wants to cover her face with a burqa and we legislate a burqa ban, are we following her right to freedom or are we oppressing her? If a society votes that they don't want to see nudity on TV, is it right for another society to not adhere to that? Is it moral for Spotify to censor songs that the US finds offensive, even though Sweden disagrees?
> All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
The above is an example of a “global value” to be enforced.
If that is being violated anywhere, it is a problem.
it’s exactly that. to moral relativists there’s no way to make any judgement between rape children and devoting your life to helping others. In fact, they could think it’s a perfectly valid opinion that the former is better than the latter morally.
We can't do it because we don't want other countries doing it to us. Can you imagine the outrage if a Saudi company in the US was ordered to stop discriminating, and they refused to comply because they believe gender discrimination is proper and just?
Certainly there are some things so terrible that we should expect companies not to go along, preferring to leave the country rather than participate. But censoring a TV episode (not even an entire show!) isn't that bad in the scheme of things.
Very smart argument! However, this happens nevertheless all the time (GDPR, food/drug regulations, ...). We just consider it normal when we can somehow agree on the benefits :).
Because SA is a powerful country. Netflix is small steaming company comparing to it. Their power aren't on par with each other.
Besides, Saudi probably has very different values, I am pretty sure if they try to spread their version of proper values in US, like what quality defines a woman, people won't be very welcoming and outrage will follow.
But the mere fact that someone has a different opinion on something does not in any way entitle them to equal consideration of their position. Just because a murderer thinks that murdering people is fine does not mean that you should be welcoming towards murders or that outrage is unjustified.
I thought the whole rationale of the de-platforming movement was that free speech doesn't apply to private companies and institutions, they are free to host whatever content they want and have whatever political bias they want. If that is the case why shouldn't it apply to Netflix too?
You’re missing the difference between public and private actions. If Netflix decides not to carry a particular film, that’s entirely up to them and their customers and competitors are free to make other decisions. If the government requires something, as in this case, that’s the kind of thing free speech advocates worry about because it has the full weight of the state behind it.
How does it not apply to Netflix? Just because they have the right to censor stuff, doesn't mean that you have to agree with any particular instance of their censorship, does it?
I am not defending Netflix. I think Silicon Valley companies pushing a political agenda using their platforms is reprehensible, particularly given the high level of concentration. However I merely point the contradiction between the New York Times cheering for the de-platforming movement and then complaining about Netflix in name of Free Speech.
It's true that some people think this. Other people think the 1st Amendment exists for a reason less simplistic than "a government shouldn't censor people," something to do with a healthy human society: https://theintercept.com/2014/08/21/twitter-facebook-executi...
This is not to argue that the 1st Amendment should compel anything beyond protection from government censorship, but that the value it exists to promote applies to wider situations
Is it? Do you have sources to back that up? In principle it seems like it's a concept that could apply equally to freedom from retribution from one's family/local community/internet service provider.
Netflix is GDPR compliant although that almost definitely violates the first amendment. To operate in foreign countries you have to abide by their rules.
I'm much more concerned by Twitter, Facebook, Patreon, et al censoring Americans.
EU is 500M people Saudi Arabia is 40M
Also, GDPR doesn’t ‘almost definitely violates the first amendment’, GDPR wasn’t passed by Congress. A GDPR-like rule might violate the first amendment if you allow a really extensive definition of speech, and even in such a setting there would be a lot of room to argue.
I don’t think it’s a valid comparison though because market sizes aren’t the same and because viewing GDPR as a free speech is far from obvious (it actually requires yogi master like bending abilities)
You could argue that anti hate speech laws in some European countries (eg France) are the same.
It’s also not necessarily correct that ‘you have to conforms to laws ... to do business in other countries’. Many trades treaties supersede local laws also, when there’s political will it’s perfectly possible to restrict what private businesses can do abroad (eg Iran).
It doesn’t, any more than Facebook or Twitter can, as non-government actors, censor Americans. There are some lobbying groups which push the argument that any sort of accountability is a free speech violation but that’s rhetorical ammunition not to be confused with a sound legal argument.
Only if the NYTimes cared as much about the "cost to free speech" in the US. The NYTimes, along with other large media companies, have been the biggest advocates of tech censorship of americans. They forced google, facebook, twitter, etc to censor ordinary americans. Makes it hard for me to take them seriously when it comes to censorship.
And I fully understand the argument of government vs private company. But the outcome is still the same - censorship. Whether content is censored at the behest of the saudis or the nytimes is meaningless to me. It's the spirit of free speech rather than the law.
Saudi Arabia has been censoring for decades. And the NYTimes has been more or less fine with that. Why the sudden change? Because the saudis are supporting Trump and vice versa? In 2008, when obama won, the nytimes and much of the media was hailing social media as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Since 2016, a complete shift. I wonder why?
The biggest disappoint for me is the realization that the NYTimes, just like foxnews and the rest of the major news companies, are politically driven rather than driven by morality or truth. If the saudis had been relentlessly mocking Trump rather than supporting him, I suspect the NYTimes article would be defending the saudis - along the lines of "when in rome..." or more likely, they wouldn't have bother writing anything. Supporting the regime and censorship by omission.
Also, I've noticed a significant drop in zuckerburg or facebook hitpieces by the media ever since his new year's message where he promised to get in line and censor like other major tech companies. I guess that means less anti-facebook spam, but more censorship online.
Huh. I thought because Netflix is a private company what they do isnt censorship. So Google, Facebook, Twitter can moderate content as they see fit, be it to please a market or local sensibilities. I’m happy to see thr NYT see content moderation as a curb on speech though.
As others said, if you’re okay with abiding by GDPR, then you’re okay with abiding by laws and regulations of other locales like China, Russia and Saudi.
Well, it against the (Saudi) law, so Netflix can't show it in Saudi Arabia. I hope they draw a line in the sand when it comes to other countries, i.e., remove the episode worldwide, but I think for individual countries the battle is lost.
Even Germany has laws curtailing what we, in USA call "Free speech" (for obvious reasons they are sensitive about Nazi propaganda.) In USA you can say virtually all things, but you'll lose your job or sponsors, er...your paycheck. So censorship is done by private entities.
As a German I want to write exactly this. By all means we are a country with good laws and everything. But we have restrictions on free speech. For very good reasons. We are proud of this and see it as something positive (when you ignore the 1% who are actually restricted).
Netflix and other global companies have these kind of challenges. They are pretty used to it (imagine food
or drug regulations). There is just a group of media/digital companies who grew their business niche too fast and are now surprised that local laws and regulations show up. The GDPR, free speech limitations, different social systems, SJW incompatibilities, etc are just samples of all of this.
And I want to highlight, that I do neither like consequences like this. I like my movies uncut, healthy discussion (eg about the monarchy) and equal right for minorities.
It is real easy. When they want to limit your product with censorship and other evil things, do not do business there. Perhaps they will come around when their people starts screaming for these kind of services.
If all companies just adhere to their rules, well the population will probably never require the change that they should because it will be good enough so the dangerous path of complaining is not worth it.
Whatever "true diversity" is it's not worth having unless _people_ can choose their own values to some extent, IMO.
Fascist cultures should not be tolerated, fascist people should (inasmuch as their fascism does not impact others against those other's own wills, of course).
Demanding SA allow freedom for individuals to exercise their own conscience would be supporting a morally defensible notion of diversity.
One major problem is that some religions (eg Islam) and religious groups (eg Mormons) have central ideologies that are antithetical to freedom of conscience; making them incompatible with many freedoms associated with democratic societies (speech, thought, association).
That's just another way of saying "you should tolerate intolerance", and the fallacy is the same.
Saudi Arabia and China are not cultural monoliths. Their ruling classes may have a cultural value of stamping out dissenting values, but their subcultures so targeted would certainly disagree.
I don't understand this article. If Saudi Arabia does not have free speech how is Netflix suppose to up hold it there? Also Free Speech is a right/protection from the government it doesn't have anything to do with private companies like Netflix. Finally the author acts like free speech is universal, "As America’s new media overlords grow at a stunning rate, expanding into every nook and cranny of the globe where governments will let them in, are they compelled to defend universal values like free speech that their home country was founded on?" The majority of countries don't have free speech like the United States does, so I wouldn't call it a universal value.
Freedom of speech is a concept, in USA there is a specific protection to prevent government from inhibiting free speech in certain ways. That doesn't mean that non-government persons are unable to inhibit free speech.
It's curious that USA's media corporations' [gamut of] values do get promoted through their productions. In more open societies they're just presented as is.
That's not how it works in the United States. As a non government entity Netflix is perfectly within their right to censor or restrict their customers any way they see fit, as long as they don't discriminate based on gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. Also It seems people in Saudi Arabia have no right to freedom of speech unlike in the United States.
Could you say that again, I can't see how it disagrees with anything I said.
Also, AIUI Netflix can discriminate so long as it's consistent with the concept of "positive discrimination". So they can say "we're not having your show because you're a white male", or "we want you to include a homosexual lead character", or similar.
I am an American who is currently living in Kuwait and spent about 3.5 years between Kuwait and Afghanistan.
In Kuwait you do not talk negatively about religion. This actually against the law and is largely how Kuwait avoids religious strife that infects other regions. In many nations here you don't talk negatively in public about the current national politics, though the acceptable tone differs by nation. In nearly all the nations here sex does not belong in any form of media. All matters of sex are private and to be kept within the household. Cursing in public is also generally bad. The allowed dress of people in media differs by nation as well.
In many areas they play American movies in public theaters, but will edit out parts that violate the local cultural norms. Remember that Sex In The City 2 was filmed in UAE, but I don't believe it was available in the cinema there.
None of this is new. The cultural challenge that nations face here is how to become modern without losing their unique identify and cultural legacies. The different countries are evolving on this matter at different speeds and prefer to accommodate for various different demands local.