By Liam Reilly, Brian Stelter, NCS
(NCS) — Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos on Tuesday confronted skeptical lawmakers throughout a Senate hearing on his firm’s pending $83 billion deal to accumulate Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming and studio property.
While many senators grilled Sarandos over antitrust points, labor considerations and shopper costs, a number of conservative members targeted as a substitute on unsubstantiated accusations that Netflix promotes “woke” content material and “transgender ideology.”
The culture-war assaults echoed claims made by MAGA influencers urging President Donald Trump to dam the deal — and should preview how the administration may search to stall the merger. (NCS, which is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, shouldn’t be a part of the transaction.)
Sen. Eric Schmitt informed Sarandos that Netflix has created “the wokest content in the history of the world,” including that the streaming big has “made a habit of promoting DEI and wokeness” and “oversexualizes for kids.”
“The overwhelming majority of your stuff is overwhelmingly woke, and it’s not reflective of what the American people want to see,” Schmitt stated. “Why in the world would we give a seal of approval or a thumbs up to make you the largest behemoth on the planet related to content?”
Sarandos disputed the claims, saying Netflix “has no political agenda” and affords a wide selection of programming “left, right and center,” as clients can see by searching the service.
Sen. Josh Hawley requested Sarandos why “so much of Netflix content for children promotes a transgender ideology.”
When Sarandos informed Hawley that his declare was “inaccurate,” and that the platform options “a wide variety of stories and programs to meet a wide variety of people’s taste,” Hawley responded that “almost half” of Netflix’s youngsters’s programming options “this highly controversial, highly sexualized material.”
Hawley didn’t present a supply for his “almost half” statistic, however his claims mirror an anti-Netflix report produced by a conservative outlet initially created by the Heritage Foundation.
The report, shared with allies forward of the Tuesday hearing, accused Netflix of “social engineering through entertainment” and repeated many acquainted right-wing critiques.
Conservative influencers with shut ties to the Trump administration laid the groundwork for MAGA opposition to the merger in December by depicting a Netflix-Warner mixture as a “monopoly.” MAGA podcaster Benny Johnson stated the mixed firm would “push trans ideology, race guilt, and anti-family messaging straight into your living room.”
That narrative continued Tuesday regardless of Sarandos’s finest efforts to explain the fact of Netflix’s content material slate.
Sen. Ted Cruz additionally attacked Netflix as a “left-wing company,” citing its multi-year manufacturing cope with Barack and Michelle Obama, and warning the merger would create “a propaganda outlet pushing one particular political view with much greater market power.”
Netflix executives have continuously identified that it’s of their company curiosity to attraction to a politically various viewers, and thereby hold folks paying for the service.
The-NCS-Wire
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