Social media users have been publishing posts which show a screenshot of a tweet seemingly from Netflix that says the company’s content is “mostly pedophilia-free”. The tweet is fake. It does not appear on Netflix’s twitter account and was originally published in an article by The Babylon Bee, which clearly labels itself as a satirical site.
The fabricated tweet, designed to appear as though it was posted by the official Netflix Twitter account, reads: “It’s important to remember that our content is mostly pedophilia-free.” The article in The Babylon Bee, where the tweet appears, says, “Responding to the backlash over the worse-than-you-could-have-ever-imagined film Cuties added to its library this week, Netflix clarified that its content is "mostly not pedophilia." (here). It quotes a fictional Netflix spokesperson as saying, “We assure you, over 93% of the Netflix library is not pedophilia in any way. Trust us -- we just did a thorough review of every movie and show in our catalog, and that's a pretty good percentage.”
The pictured tweet carries a timestamp of 7:34am on Sept. 10, 2020. No such tweet appears on Netflix’s twitter (twitter.com/netflix). Archives of Netflix’s twitter account seen at this link tinyurl.com/y4y3teba also show that they did not tweet this at any point.
On Sept. 9, 2020, Netflix released a film called ‘Cuties’, which centres on an 11-year-old Muslim girl who “starts to rebel against her conservative family’s traditions when she becomes fascinated with a free-spirited dance crew”, according to Netflix. The launch was delayed in Turkey after their broadcasting watchdog (RTUK) ordered it to be removed saying it might lead to potential child exploitation (here) . Netflix has also apologised for the “inappropriate artwork” used to promote the film (here) . The director of Cuties told Cineuropa that the story is about how social media pushes girls to mimic sexualised imagery without fully understanding what is happening (here) .
The posts shared on Facebook link to or show a screenshot of the Babylon Bee article, with captions such as, “So apparently partial pedophilia is ok with Netflix” (here) . Various other reactions suggest social media users who shared the content weren’t aware it was originally intended as satire ( here , here ).
The Babylon Bee describes itself as “the world’s best satire site” (babylonbee.com/about) .
VERDICT
False. The tweet is from an article published on the website, The Babylon Bee, which is clearly labelled as satirical.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our work to fact-check social media posts here .
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