Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries says new laws could ‘hold Netflix to account’
A new law could see streaming platform Netflix prosecuted over a culturally insensitive joke made by comedian Jimmy Carr during his recent stand up special.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast earlier today, Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries suggested that new legislation could hold to account streaming platforms that publish insensitive jokes made by comics – and potentially prosecute them – according to reports from The Independent.
Carr recently made headlines following a joke featured in his new stand up special His Dark Material.
In it, the 49-year-old comedian began speaking about the horrors the holocaust – an event which saw “six million Jewish lives being lost,” he explained. The 8 Out of 10 Cats host then continued to the joke’s punchline, which took aim at gypsies and those in the traveller community that also lost their lives at the hands of the Nazis.
The moment went on to spark outrage online, with The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust saying that it was “absolutely appalled” at Carr’s comments – as reported by the BBC.
Now, it seems Conservative MP Dorries is keen to see change made, suggesting new laws could “hold Netflix to account” for publishing content of this type.
“We are looking at legislation via the Media Bill which would bring into scope those comments from other video on-demand streaming outlets like Netflix,” Dorries told BBC Breakfast.
“So it’s interesting that we’re already looking at future legislation to bring into scope those sort of comments.”
Dorries continued to say that she felt Carr’s comments were “abhorrent” before suggesting that they “just shouldn’t be on television.”
However shortly afterward, she was reminded of one of her own tweets, posted in 2017, which said “left-wing snowflakes are killing comedy.”
Her response? “What Jimmy Carr did last night is not comedy.
“And you know, I’m no angel on Twitter, nobody is, but I just would like to say that nothing I’ve ever put on Twitter has been harmful or abusive.
“But that last night… Jimmy Carr’s comments, no one can call that, you know, snowflake or wokeishness, that’s just… it was just appalling.”
Carr issued a ‘trigger warning’ before the start of his latest, hour-long special, forewarning the audience that his new set contained “terrible things.”
When asked by Sky News if these new laws could impact free speech, Dorries expanded: “No, absolutely not. We’ve been very, very… well because I’m a Conservative, I’ve been very, very careful about that.”
Meanwhile, Labour MP Nadia Whittome has written to Netflix to ask for the entirety of Carr’s latest special to be removed in the wake of recent criticism.
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