• Human-rights groups criticized Netflix on Wednesday for deciding to pull in Saudi Arabia an episode of comedian Hasan Minhaj's Patriot Act series that criticized the kingdom's powerful crown prince. The American comedian used his second episode, released Oct. 28, to criticize Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the killing of writer Jamal Khashoggi and the Saudi-led coalition at war in Yemen. The human-rights group Amnesty International said Saudi Arabia's censorship of Netflix is "further proof of a relentless crackdown on freedom of expression." Netflix said it was simply complying with a Saudi law. Khashoggi, who wrote critically of the crown prince in columns for The Washington Post, was killed and dismembered by Saudi agents inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul last year. The U.S. Senate has said it believes the crown prince is responsible for the killing, despite insistence by the kingdom that he had no knowledge of the operation. "It blows my mind that it took the killing of a Washington Post journalist for everyone to go: 'Oh, I guess he's not really a reformer,'" Minhaj said in the episode. In the roughly 18-minute, now-censored Patriot Act monologue, Minhaj also mentioned the ruling Al Saud family and its vast wealth, saying: "Saudi Arabia is crazy. One giant family controls everything." Netflix, in a statement Wednesday, said the episode was removed as a result of a legal request from Saudi authorities and not because of its content. "We strongly support artistic freedom worldwide and removed this episode only in Saudi Arabia after we had received a valid legal demand from the government -- and to comply with local law," the streaming giant said.
• Facebook has apologized for temporarily banning North Carolina evangelist Franklin Graham from its platform over a 2016 post about the state's "bathroom bill." The Asheville Citizen-Times reported that Facebook apologized to Graham on Sunday. Graham, the son of the late Rev. Billy Graham, said last week that Facebook had banned him for 24 hours in December, saying the post violated community hate-speech standards. Graham said the post focused on the now-repealed House Bill 2, which required transgender people to use restrooms matching the sex on their birth certificates. Graham said his post was about Bruce Springsteen canceling a concert over the bill and about "backward progress." In the post, Graham said that "a nation embracing sin and bowing at the feet of godless secularism and political correctness is not progress."
A Section on 01/03/2019