Netflix made a recent episode of the political commentary show “Patriot Act” unavailable in Saudi Arabia after to criticism from the Saudi government. Hosted by comic Hasan Minhaj, Patriot Act satirizes current political issues in the United States and abroad.
In the episode in question, Minhaj criticized Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s response to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia. Minhaj also touched on the country’s role in the 9/11 attack on the United States. He asserted that the US government should re-examine its relationship with the Saudi government.
Saudi Arabia threatened legal action against Netflix if the episode was not removed. They maintained that the episode violated Article Six of the Saudi anti-cybercrime law, which bans “production, preparation, transmission, or storage of material impinging on public order, religious values, public morals, and privacy, through the information network or computers.”
Netflix stated that they took the episode down in order to “comply with local law.” The episode is still available on Netflix for other countries, and can also be accessed on YouTube.
This isn’t the first time that art pieces critical of Middle Eastern governments have been censored in those countries. Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef often made fun of government officials on his satirical news show, El-Bernameg. In 2013, as part of a campaign to censor him, Youssef was charged with insulting then president Mohamed Morsi and Islam and disturbing public peace.
The removal of “Patriot Act” could set the stage for more censorship in the future. Netflix is one of the biggest streaming platforms, and has considerable influence in the digital world. Since Netflix took the episode down without much pushback against the government, this sets a precedent for other streaming services to do the same.
Article by MoCo Student staff writer Nene Narh-Mensah of Montgomery Blair High School