Russian Culture Minister Claims Netflix A U.S. Mind Control Effort
from the glass-house-propagandists dept
Already on the shitlist of U.S. broadband companies for supporting net neutrality and opposing things like usage caps, Netflix now has a new factually-challenged enemy: Russia. Russia's Culture Ministry took over government film funding through the Cinema Fund in 2012, and more recently unveiled a list of approved subject matter should film makers in Russia wish to get funding. Approved subject matter should include tales that herald "traditional values," "the constructive actions of civil society" or "heroes fighting crime, terrorism and extremism."With Netflix now pushing into 190 different countries and launching in Russia last January, Russia has clearly become nervous about the influence the US streaming company could have on Russian culture and homegrown production efforts. As such, streaming services like Netflix have been saddled with a significant number of restrictions, including requirements that online video services must be run through a Russia-registered subsidiary, produce 30% of its content locally, and potentially apply for a broadcast license.
Apparently believing these restrictions won't hamper Netflix fully enough, Russian Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky last week upped the rhetoric to 11, proclaiming that Netflix was little more than a US government attempt to control the minds of Russian citizens:
"Vladimir Medinsky, Russia's minister of culture and a loyal supporter of President Vladimir Putin, claims the online streaming service is on the US government payroll. Speaking to a Russian news service, he said the White House had realised "how to enter every home, creep into every television, and through that television, into the head of every person on earth, with the help of Netflix."Scary! Nobody denies that both countries have used oceans of disinformation and media propaganda to portray the other side in a negative light, but suggesting Netflix has much of a motivation beyond money is an entertaining leap. Medinsky's complaint is particularly amusing given that Russia was just exposed for running disinformation factories twenty-four hours a day whose sole function is to fill the internet with anti-Western bile. But regardless of which side is generating the propaganda; if your social values are so fragile they can be unraveled by a half-hour sitcom or a documentary, you may want to reconsider your ethos.
"It turns out that our ideological friends [the US government] understand perfectly well which is the greatest of the arts," he said, alluding Lenin's famous comment about the propaganda of cinema. "And you thought, what? That all these gigantic start-ups appear by themselves? That some boy student thought something up and billions of dollars flutter from above?"
That said, the real villain in this latest chapter in the information wars isn't Netflix, but Netflix-produced shows and other fare that dare to show homosexuals as something vaguely resembling actual human beings.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: american culture, culture, mind control, movies, russia, tv, vladimir medinsky
Companies: netflix
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I used to work for Netflix years ago. The only mind control going on there at the time was the reinforcement of the false idea that a large, successful company could still act like a start up and treat employees as disposable.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Russia and streaming content servers
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The first thing...
I would like to see them increase their streaming propaganda content however.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
the culture minister could have a point
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: the culture minister could have a point
how to enter every home, creep into every television, and through that television, into the head of every person on earth
TV, internet, radio, books, etc., all reach us at home. What is consumed in the home will cause an influence on the way people think and feel. The influence might be so small it barely registers on the subconscious or so large that it is life-altering, but the influence is there. The results of the influence are not always predicable.
Governments, people in positions of power, and corporations all know that truth and so they try to manipulate the conversations that people have by controlling media.
A perfect example is the previous article today about Google and facebook censoring extremism. The videos about radical Islam will influence people that watch it. However the government can't control how people perceive the content.
The conclusions people reach after watching the video could be that radical Islam and the actions it's followers are doing is evil, good, necessary, stupid, unforgivable, waste of time or attention, etc. (I think the extremists are evil people, but that is just my opinion) The government knows how stuff can influence so they try to hide the "bad" speech. But that just causes the Streisand effect to occur. So in the end trying to contol the media in that way may not be very effective.
Another example is advertising. People see ads all the time. Sometimes the ad does influence people to buy a product or it turns someone off of a product. For the other people that think it doesn't influence you. You are wrong it did influence you. It took time and attention away from other potentially important things. Or it blocked some ad space from showing a better product. At the very least it is inside your head and could help influence a decision later on in life.
I guess the TL:DR version is everything we experience in life has some degree of influence on us. So governments (lobbyists, etc.) try to control the narrative. However the conclusions from the influence each individual person generates from their experience is not always predicable. The desired results by those controlling the narrative are not always achieved.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: the culture minister could have a point
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: the culture minister could have a point
My point was media in general not specifically Netflix. Though sometimes distributors will influence what is offered to sway public opinion.
It is possible the content creators might sometimes have a nefarious agenda when they film something in a certain light.
But alas, time to go play a movie on Netflix. :)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Because I think of them in a very positive way. They charge a tiny fraction what I pay my effectively-a-monopoly cable ISP, yet deliver a big chunk of the value I get from the Internet.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Interestingly...
Wait a second... name me ANY government "Cultural" agency that is not busy doing every thing they can get by with trying to twist, spin, pontificate, gyrate, or just brain wash others regarding their culture?
EVERYONE wants their good shit prominently displayed and their skeletons locked TIGHTLY in the closet!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Phhhhpt... mind control
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Hate to break it to this guy, but yes, if you have a good idea then the investment will come rolling in, regardless of age or track record.
The fact their culture minister thinks that's just fantasy is alarming for both US and Russian culture.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
-Russia-registered subsidiary: pay taxes in Russia
-produce 30% of its content locally: the EU wants the same
-apply for a broadcast license: if the law says that streaming is broadcast then yes they probably need a license
And as for the Minister, he is correct that you can manipulate people with movies and it stands to reason that the US as one of the biggest producer of movies/TV shows does that. Ever seen a US movie or TV show in which the US is portrayed as evil? If so then it was the Gov and the hero(es) who saved everyone was/were American too. So you could make an argument with that.
The only thing that can be attacked here is the "startups out of nothing". Wiki (too lazy to do real research) says Netflix was founded back in the late 90s which contradicts the out of nothing theory.
So while the guy might seem a bit stupid for his propaganda speech imho it isnt worse than any other propaganda. i.e. Turkey didn't shoot down a Russian aircraft and Russia made it up, yesterday Turkey said they are sorry for shooting down the aircraft.
tl:dr
As long as people think about what was said and dont just take it as true or false by default I guess we are good.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Holy projection Batman!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Mind Control
If corporate media has known about and used this type of audio technology for 2 or 3 decades or more, can you imagine how advanced the new methods of subliminal audio programming have become? It would not surprise me if some or all of the new Netflix series/movies/'programming' (it's called 'programming' for a reason) have subliminal audio content and other types of 'conditioning.' Search: MK Ultra - The Monarch Project, a CIA Mind Control program which began in the early 1950s.
“One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.” ― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
[ link to this | view in chronology ]