"On Tuesday, the Senate subcommittee on antitrust, competition policy, and consumer rights held a hearing over Netflix's proposed $83 million bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. If the deal goes through, Netflix would become the biggest streaming platform in the world, dwarfing Disney, which has held the title since 2022. While some of the committee members used the antitrust hearing to interrogate actual antitrust issues, Hawley and several other GOP lawmakers used it to whine about "woke" television."
""On Netflix, you'll find that an enormous amount-and I say this as a parent with three young children-an enormous amount of your children's programming has this ideology and agenda in it," Hawley asked, naturally, referring to transgender people and gender-affirming care. "Is this an advocacy position for Netflix? Is this an ideological commitment you have?" "Netflix has no political agenda of any kind," Sarandos responded. "Well, then why is your children's program so full of this highly sexualized, highly controversial, highly controversial agenda?," Hawley replied. "I don't understand it, it seems strange to me." "Respectfully, sir, because it's inaccurate," Sarandos said. "We have millions of hours of children's programming...I'm saying we feature a wide variety of stories"
Sen. Josh Hawley confronted Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos during a Senate antitrust subcommittee hearing, criticizing transgender representation and alleged "gender ideology" in children's programming. Hawley asked whether Netflix holds an ideological commitment and described children's shows as "highly sexualized" and "controversial." Sarandos responded that Netflix has no political agenda and emphasized the platform's millions of hours of children's content and a wide variety of stories. The hearing was convened around Netflix's proposed $83 million bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, a deal that would make Netflix the largest streaming platform, surpassing Disney.
Read at Jezebel
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]