Netflix: "No, the changing episode order has nothing to do with your sexual identity"
Netflix is committed to being at the forefront of experimentation when it comes to its programming, and it doesn’t stop at allowing their audience to ruin a kid’s life for hours on end. With their latest foray into adult animation Love, Death, and Robots, the exploratory anthology strays from traditional series elements, like uniformed time length or singular story arcs. Thanks to its anthological set-up, the series is also free from the suffocating confines of a cohesive episode order. So Netflix decided to present subscribers with four orders that differ from user to user.
As viewers took notice, some began to speculate over the potential algorithms that may link certain orders with certain subscribers. Before long, Netflix responded via its official Twitter account to one particular thread, which claimed that the order was seemingly based on the user’s sexual identity.
“The version you’re shown has nothing to do with gender, ethnicity, or sexual identity — info we don’t even have in the first place,” Netflix denied, which is exactly what a potentially snooping, alarmingly astute streaming platform would say. A spokesperson for Netflix went on to further clarify to Slate that while the platform does collect certain data, such as viewer patterns, it does not gather any information pertaining to race, gender identity, or sexual orientation.
Netflix still hasn’t quite specified which algorithm determines who gets what order, so it could very well be entirely randomized, or it could be silently judging your penchant for cooking contests and a half decent true crime docuseries.
[Via IndieWire]