Facing pressure in India, Netflix and Amazon back down on daring films
Facing pressure in India, Netflix and Amazon back down on daring films
Hindu nationalists aligned with the BJP government use mass public pressure and the threat of criminal cases to shape or entirely block films produced by Netflix and Amazon, resulting in a culture of self-censorship.
'Today, a culture of self-censorship pervades the streaming industry here, manifesting in ways both dramatic and subtle. Executives at the India offices of Netflix and Prime Video and their lawyers ask for extensive changes to rework political plots and remove passing references to religion that might offend the Hindu right wing or the BJP, industry insiders say. Projects that deal with India’s political, religious or caste divisions are politely declined when they are proposed, or dropped midway through development. Even completed series and films have been quietly abandoned and withheld by Netflix and Prime Video from their more than 400 million combined viewers worldwide.'