Thanks to the ongoing efforts by the LGBTQIA+ community, comedians like Dave Chappelle have come under constant attacks due to their content. While being a comedian means discussing topics that some might find offensive, after Chappelle released his specials on Netflix, some employees and activists called for him to be canceled for being transphobic. Not only did the comedian receive backlash for his jokes, but Netflix also came under fire for defending the artists. Now, months after the calls for him to be canceled, Netflix released a memo advising employees to find another job if they view their material as offensive. 

Releasing their Netflix Culture memo, it reads, “If you’d find it hard to support our content breadth, Netflix may not be the best place for you.” The letter continued, “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. 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.”

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Shortly after Chappelle’s “The Closer ” was released, a leader for a trans organization, who worked at Netflix, staged a walkout that eventually led to them being fired. According to the Verge, “The employee was terminated on suspicion of leaking metrics to the press related to the Dave Chappelle special. Those metrics — about how much Netflix paid for The Closer and how many people it reached — subsequently ended up in a report on Bloomberg. While the employee had shared the metrics internally, they spoke out against the leaks to colleagues, worried they might hurt the walkout movement.”

The outlet added, “The leaking of internal data is highly unusual at Netflix. While the company prides itself on transparency, employees are told that the culture can only thrive when Netflix data remains internal.”

Netflix becomes one of the few companies to stand against the calls for censorship as the Walt Disney Company has come under fire and in D.C., the Biden administration helped create the Disinformation Governance Board to help fight what they deem to be misinformation being shared online. 

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