As the partisan talons rapidly emerged, Netflix was criticized at a Senate hearing for purportedly having “the wokest content in the history of the world” and spreading “propaganda.”
During a heated Capitol Hill debate on Tuesday about Netflix’s $83 billion purchase of Warner Bros., Senator Ted Cruz openly stated, “Netflix has long been a left-wing company.”
The aspirational Texas Senator figuratively asked Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, “How would people at home… feel even remotely confident that if this merger happens, the combined entity would not simply be a propaganda outlet pushing one particular political view with much greater market power than you have now.”
Sen. Cruz was by no means the sole representative of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust to hammer the MAGA drum and Sarandos today, voicing concerns about “hatred of Donald Trump” and “censorship in the media and censorship in Hollywood.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MI) had earlier attacked the typically flawless pitchman executive with accusations purportedly taken from a recent negative conservative review of Netflix.
“Why is it that so much of Netflix content for children promotes a transgender ideology?” challenged the senior senator from Missouri. Sarandos stated that the corporation has “no political agenda of any kind,” sidestepping rather than retaliating.
Hawley’s colleague senator from the state of Show-me, adopted a similar position about the broadcaster. To an obviously uneasy Sarandos, Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MI) claimed, “The overwhelming majority of your stuff right now is overwhelmingly woke, and it’s not reflective of what the American people want to see. Both you and Netflix have made a habit of promoting DEI and wokeness. I’ll just give a few examples, Netflix content is synonymous for the modern phenomenon of race swapping both historical and real and fictional characters.”
The Missouri junior senator noted that he was questioning the executive. “Yes or no. Does Netflix stand by its content production decisions?”
“Senator Schmidt, we have a great deal of programming on Netflix for all left, right and center,” Sarandos added. “We have state of the art tools for parents to manage what their kids see on Netflix.”