At Netflix, a star and employees pressure a top executive over Dave Chappelle | Hacker News Reader

At Netflix, a star and employees pressure a top executive over Dave Chappelle

nytimes.com

Whether or not you agree with Netflix or not, they are being hypocritical and inconsistent. They went and removed a bunch of shows for having blackface last year (from what I can see, used typically or maybe always for comedy and often in a way that's making fun of racism.) [1] Yet now their CEO is defending this new show and saying, "Adults can watch violence, assault and abuse – or enjoy shocking stand-up comedy – without it causing them to harm others." [2]

If so, then why not re-add the previously censored content?

[1] https://www.vulture.com/2020/06/blackface-tv-episodes-scenes...

[2] https://variety.com/2021/film/news/ted-sarandos-dave-chappel...

Thanks for sharing that list, it definitely challenged some of my preconceptions. As someone who watched The Closer and didn't think it went too far, I think most would agree that there should be some fixed line to judge what goes too far and shouldn't be on their platform. It's sad that this line doesn't seem to be determined by any principles -- or at least any explicit principles. These 2 examples make me think the "principles" being followed are 1) Money, and 2) PR/current events (George Floyd protests in the case of removing episodes with blackface).

"I think most would agree that there should be some fixed line to judge what goes too far and shouldn't be on their platform."

I can see the need for things like parental filters, or better user controls to be able to get recommendations for things you actually want to see.

I would also be the first person to agree that Netflix has the right to decide what content they want to distribute.

But from a customer point of view what I want from Netflix is to give give me maximum choice. Give me absolutely every kind of content imaginable, offensive or G-rated, and then give me the tools to be able to limit what my children can view and to fine tune the sorts of recommendations I get.

I'm a huge believer in "if you don't like it, watch something else" and "if someone else likes it, that's none of your business."

Unfortunately, from a business perspective, there will always be a trade off of "buying a license to X means we can't afford to license Y or Z". They spent millions to get this special, and probably could have gotten a dozen works from less-famous comedians for that same money.

That's driven by how many people will watch it (demonstrably, very many, in Chappelle's case), not by the magnitude of offense taken by some number of people.

The proportion of people not watching a show will always be far higher than those watching it, so there's room for offense from non-watchers to drive product decisions. The parent comment is saying that he doesn't want that to factor in at all, which is orthogonal to the question of Netflix needing to allocate resources between content.

It's the same conundrum as some open source projects who put up a BLM banner at the height of the protests last year. How do you ever remove it now? Not that the issues have been fixed but there's more than one issue in the world and you're a json library.

I encountered this for the first time just this week and it felt so awkward and out of place.

Netflix is simply following public opinion. As far as I can tell, most Americans think that blackface is wrong.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/11/about-a-thi...

By comparison, most Americans think that gender is determined by your sex at birth.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/11/08/transgender...

Platforms like Netflix do have to draw a line somewhere. The question is just where the line should be.

I think you're misreading that first link. It seems that only 37% of adults think that blackface is never acceptable. That's actually less then the gender one you linked.

Plus that first link is specifically asked about use in a Halloween costume.

I was adding "rarely acceptable" and "never acceptable" to get the sum total of "negative opinions", I think that's reasonable to summarize a poll with many options as yes-or-no. The Halloween thing isn't great, but it's all I could find....

I think that many of the censored episodes would fall under the rare times it is acceptable, though, but I suppose that is just my opinion.

I'm sure most Americans also believe that rape and murder are wrong (unless done in some far away desert by the military), yet such acts are featured prominently on Netflix.

Are we really to believe that this [1] is such a horrible act of racism that must be cens... sanitized from history forever?

[1] https://youtu.be/LKjW5s3tXlo

I'd say the situations look worse here. Most of the blackface I'm aware of that got removed was mocking racism (community), or the lack of nuance around what makes something racism (always sunny). Both were fairly obviously not condoning it.

This content directly mocks trans people and makes assertions that they're not legitimate. It's as far as I can tell, not a fictitious situation, just part of a routine. Seems like a real blunder to greenlight this imo. This is lacking nuance to the level of making fun of asians for having squinty eyes or black people for big lips.

Am I misremembering or was the community blackface episode actually blueface.

Definitely black. Chang is roleplaying as a dark elf in D&D and goes full black face. He claims it is not a racial thing but is immediately ejected from the group.

Here's a link: https://youtu.be/oRkcsuMcrEA?t=79

I think the situation here is worse too because the CEO used Netflix's publishing of the documentary Disclosure, which directly calls out the harm of jokes such as Chappelle's, as part of the defense that the company itself isn't anti-trans, which feels a bit too much like the hypocrisy of saying "we posted a documentary about the horrible harm that blackface does so we are 'allowed' to post our own blackface stuff". It doesn't work that way.

I think Dave has done a lot of good work at normalizing the Trans community through his jokes. He doesn't punch down like some have asserted.

Even though I feel like this last special wasn't great, at no point did I feel like he was Trans phobic or unkind. Does he go far? Absolutely, likely further than anyone else would dare go... But his jokes are his medium for making people think about societies deeper issues.

One of the best examples of this is "how old is 15 really?" (YouTube it).

While taking that sketch at face value or out of context it could be construed as a savage attack on a 15yr old girl who was the victim of a kidnapping. But anyone with half a brain should be able to deconstruct the underlying message and see what the real takeaway is. He shocks you first, then he makes you think.

Dear Netflix: please don't cave to the faux outrage machine.

What about legitimately outraged people, like the ones being discussed here?

They will absolutely forget all about this in a few weeks.

Interesting speculation, is it based on anything at all?

Louis CK was highly criticized for going back on tour by the same people that criticized him for the sexual misconduct he admitted to in 2017.

How many people are mad at Joe Rogan on this issue at this moment? None, they're all on Chappelle right now, it'll be someone else soon.

One other note, on CK, I wonder the overlap between people who want him punished forever and those who support rehabilitation of actual felons.

Joe Rogan's comments keep coming up in the context of discussion of this issue in recent news; many people are still mad. You've picked a poor example.

https://www.salon.com/2021/10/18/tucker-carlson-joe-rogan-an...

Salon is not news, it's yellow journalism.

> FAKE NEWS

Interesting opinion, it doesn't change the fact that many people are still mad about Rogan's comments.

https://consequence.net/2021/10/team-terf-dave-chappelle/

https://www.foxnews.com/media/the-view-hosts-clash-joe-rogan...

"Many" people is a weasel word, a couple dozen could qualify.

It's only an issue for the media-addicted and those who fill airtime for a living.

Thank you for agreeing, many (a word you used first) people are still upset about Rogan's comments, disproving your point that "none" are. If you have anything but blind speculation you're going on, feel free to provide it!

>FAKE NEWS

You seriously reply with two more links to yellow journalism. I can't tell if you're trolling or not, but that's three strikes, you're out.

Pretty big difference between saying something inappropriate during a comedic performance and jacking off in front of non-consenting people.

And one similarity: Louis CK is still highly criticized for going back on tour by the same people that criticized him 5-7 years ago. That is what was being discussed, scroll up to learn more.

How is it a similarity if it's only happened to one of them? Chappelle hasn't been criticized after 5-7 years for returning to stand up.

You can't ignore why someone is being criticized when discussing whether other people who are being criticized for different reasons will be treated the same way.

Outrage is an emotion. By itself it does not lend credibility to your cause. There is an excess of outrage in society, thanks BigSocialMedia. Hoping for a collective calm down.

Its interesting to me that at one time the idea of separating politics and work used to be standard decorum.

I do think we as human beings obviously can not shut off our feelings, its important for companies to realize this and allow their employees to disagree and express themselves. In the end, its still up to employees to be mature about it.

>Its interesting to me that at one time the idea of separating politics and work used to be standard decorum

it's a mirage of sorts. Exercising sovereign power and drawing the line where politics ends is in itself political, in fact it's arguably the most political act there is. What's changed is not 'how much' politics there is but where the power lies.

tech workers in contrast to a lot of people in the past have significant leverage, because they're relatively few in numbers, in high demand, and have fairly homogenous views which happen to conflict with the people who own all the stuff. Which makes for a fairly combustible combination.

Why do companies fear loud Twitter mobs or small groups of vocal activist employees? These companies can simply ignore them or fire them if they aren’t doing their job. It is best for tech companies to be politically neutral. After all, half the country and much of the world don’t hold progressive Bay Area views. Serving and representing them is just as important and employees need to maturely deal with it or quit.

A legal precedent was set by González v. Abercrombie & Fitch. Being seen on the wrong side of the diversity issue becomes a legal liability that everybody avoids. Issues that everybody avoids morph into cultural dogma via groupthink. The role of Twitter mobs is to buildup and maintain pressure, which, at the very least, raises the concrete risk of legal damages. See, for example, the recent Tesla $137M discrimination verdict.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abercrombie_%26_Fitch#Employme...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzalez_v._Abercrombie_%26_Fi....

Expanding on the question, what are good examples of angry Twitter mobs that ended up costing companies a lot of money? (With or without the legal system being the source of those losses.)

Politics aside: how much operational and technical risk is staff walkout for companies like Netflix? Ie if 2% of their DevOps engineers leave immediately, would it create any noticeable operational/technical effect for Netflix?

in the short term, unlikely. If they can't manage to keep their systems running for a few hours during off peak hours, then they have bigger problems.

Long term, if 3% of their SRE/SWE leave Netflix tomorrow, would it make any noticeable operational/technical difference?

So in other words: Netflix will go on a hiring binge soon...

It may not be the truth some want to hear, but Netflix will likely be more than happy to identify "troublemakers" with this planned walkout, even if they're fantastically productive otherwise.

Many C-suite see themselves as leaders "going in to battle" leading an "army". The last things leaders tolerate in an army are deserters and overly objectionable types.

Dear Netflix: Please fire every single individual that walks out. There are thousands of individuals who have been rejected from roles at your company that would look at this situation in a rational light.

So you're calling on Netflix to "cancel" these employees because they're expressing political views you don't agree with?

And the political views you're so bothered by are... employees calling on Netflix to "cancel" someone who expressed political views they don't agree with?

How is this not just flagrant hypocrisy

You make an implicit assumption that firing is the same as cancelling which hasn't been established.

Also, they can be legally fired for walking out of work. Not all political expression is legally protected with regards to further employment.

>How is this not just flagrant hypocrisy

It's not at all. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Netflix doesn't owe them a job, does it? They can do what they want with their company.

Presumably Netflix feels that those rejected people lack the skill and expertise of the people they hired instead. Would Netflix be willing to take the downgrade to avoid having employees protest?

This is a good point but I would say an employee at work is more useful than one who isn’t.

Furthermore, the position these employees are taking shows a serious lack of judgement that might not have been considered during their hiring.

> In a rare public rebuke, the Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby upbraided Mr. Sarandos by name for his defense of Mr. Chappelle.

Say what you want about the whole thing, but the two comedy shows with Hannah Gadsby on Netflix are _really_ good and I recommend everyone to watch them.

I wonder how much of a Streisand effect this is having on viewing figures of the Special.

Likely a lot, especially as it was quite mediocre compared to most of Dave's past works.

if they cancel Dave Chappelle I cancel my Netflix subscription.

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