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Comment by asenna | Hacker News Reader

I hate consuming movies on Amazon Prime Video in India. Their self-censorship is worse than the Censor board.

Just one of my recent experiences - A well made movie "Shahid" - There's a scene where the two guys are in jail having a chat. An entire line just gets censored and Shahid's shocked reaction means the scene was important.

I then found the movie on Netflix. The line they censored was - "This country doesn't give a shit about it's minority". Wtf?! Are we that insecure that we need to Censor stuff like that.

That's just one example, it's almost impossible to watch Shahid and other similar movies on Amazon. Which is weird because they are on the Internet, they don't have a Censor body governing their content!

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Other examples of Amazon self-censoring despite the govt saying they are not considering censoring online content.

* Pixelated nudity in shows like Californication and The Man In The High Castle and films like Watchmen and The Godfather

* The Grand Tour had an episode which involved animal carcasses. All of it was removed.

My $0.02 on this difference between Amazon and Netflix. This is Netflix's primary business, while Video is an afterthought for Amazon compared to the retail business. A boycott of their retail business would be catastrophic, whereas a few people canceling their subscription over self-censorship is a non-issue.

Amazon can also potentially be shaken down for protection money. It would work like this. "Hi, we're from this political party and we're considering making these videos a major issue. Meanwhile, would you consider making a donation to our election campaign?"

Let me get this straight. It's not catastrophic for Netflix if people boycott them for showing nudity but it's catastrophic for Amazon if people stopped watchiny Amazon prime video?

No he is saying that Amazon doesn't really care much about their video business and therefore are fine with decreasing it's competitiveness via censorship if it decreases the risk of boycotts on is primary businesses.

Whereas if Netflix becomes less competitive in it's video business they lose everything. So taking risks by not censoring can make more sense.

I have noticed a fundamental difference in the way these businesses try to function here. Amazon has been trying to completely adapt to how things "get done" in India. For the sake of the loose analogy I'll equate it to the "Ola way". You got to get your cabs moving on the road? Don't fight with the system, don't challenge the Govt or court, get around it. Politicians banned your cab? Well, wait till the evening when things cool down and traffic cops stop pulling your cabs over while you are busy lobbying and then everything is back on track while Uber kept releasing statements and losing business. Amazon has shown this on pricing front and the way they introduce offers and deals that is very specific to how it will work in India.

On the other hand Netflix tries to follow the same system that it follows everywhere - kind of how Uber has been trying so far - and it seems Netflix is already backing down when it comes to again pricing. Couple of lawsuits and and bans and I have little doubt Netflix will fall in line and start with the self-censoring.

I do want Netflix to succeed too and not at all condone censorship. Just sharing my crude observations as a local.

Unlike Netflix which is 100% online, Amazon also has a physical distribution network that it wants to keep running in India

That's frankly ridiculous, when shows like shameless are more or less intact, I don't know why they'd censor other shows, movies so much

Interesting, I think it could be because Amazon chose to be conservative and selected the version of the movie that's played on national TV.

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