Netflix has acquired the global distribution rights for the movie Cuties and has been promoting it for a while now. Needless to say, the movie has been at the seat for several controversies, with many people condemning it for sexualizing school-going children. Netflix is also facing a lawsuit in Texas over this.
And ever since Netflix started promoting Cuties, several users have talked about canceling Netflix with the hashtag #cancelnetflix as they shared clips of the movie and poured their personal opinions online.
In a move that seems to be made for suppressing negative reception and backlash, Netflix started sending copyright notices to tweets that featured a clip from the Cuties movie in order to cut criticism against them.
It is also worth noting that tweets that were critical of the movie were the ones to receive the copyright notices – the same as what Netflix was doing on YouTube, putting the channels of independent YouTubers at risk of strikes by issuing takedowns against videos that were expressing criticism.
All things said and done, Netflix can’t really wipe out all the critical comments as only the video clips remain censored and the text of those tweets are still there in many cases.
Amber, a Twitter user who posted the trailer of the film on her page and wrote a critical tweet ended up having her tweet removed. “Someone posted the trailer and I retweeted it and stated how I felt about the movie. I believe people have the right to be upset about the movie. If people share the trailer and say ‘go watch it’ it’s not a problem but if someone disagrees with it, it’s a problem,” said Amber to TorrentFreak.
Many others have posted content from the movie where children were shown in angles that were sexualizing them and all such tweets have had the media content removed due to Netflix’s copyright notices.
There have also been cases where Twitter users had been locked out of their account, all because they have expressed their concerns or have been critical about the movie.
Surprisingly, tweets with the trailer of Cuties without any criticism or negative comments have not faced any takedowns or copyright issues. All-in-all, it seems as though the tech giant is abusing its power to silence criticism.
