*According to Deadline, Netflix will keep streaming Russell Brand's 2018 stand-up special "Re:Birth" after he was sentenced to 10 years and six months on Monday for rape and three counts of sexual assault. The special will no longer appear in recommendations, but it is still findable if you search "British stand-up comedy."
The statement that explains the whole decision: "We prioritize choice and control for our members." Translation from press release to human: the content is a liability and the content is inventory, and the answer is to keep both problems. Netflix does not delete, because deleting means the algorithm made a mistake. Netflix demotes. The special keeps its SKU and loses its billboard.
Here is the fun part. You cannot type the man's name and find the show, so the company has effectively published a search password for a convicted man's stand-up, and the password is a genre. "British stand-up comedy." That is not content moderation, that is a scavenger hunt with a terms of service.
The precedent file is thin too. Netflix stood by Chappelle's trans jokes and Jimmy Carr's Traveller joke, and the "high bar" for removal turns out to be a business model: nothing comes down, everything gets buried. The catalog is the confession now. Re:Birth is still there, still doing the sticky confetti bit, still up on Netflix as if the last week was a scheduling conflict. The only thing that changed is the shelf.
YOUR TURN: Go type "British stand-up comedy" into Netflix right now and tell me what you find, and whether finding it counts as a statement.
PAPER TRAIL
- The Netflix decision: Deadline
- The sentencing, live: BBC
- The sentence, wire edition: NPR
- The special, still listed: Netflix
- First report: The Telegraph via Yahoo
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