Hey MDLers,
Now that more and more k-dramas are being streamed on Netflix, I wanted to crowd-source examples of where Netflix has altered the video or audio from the original, or otherwise censored something. This might help us all to understand under what circumstances Netflix might censor a show and hopefully we can bear these in mind as viewers when watching.
1) Censorship of copyrighted audio
This is the most obvious one, seen in the Reply series etc where songs were edited out, presumably because Netflix couldn't be bothered to acquire international rights to the audio or didn't want to pay to use it.
2) Censorship of toilet humour
I noticed this in Save Me S01E01 when one of Sanghwan's gang mentioned that his father was taking a dump. This line was not translated from Korean into English (at the very least). I don't know if this was true for other languages.
3) Censorship of homosexuality references
Again in Save Me S01E01, an interaction between two characters which began with the line "Do you like men?" was translated in the English subs to omit reference to homosexuality and alter the meaning of the lines/actions.
4) Continued censorship of blades
Blurring out of blades from Korean broadcast was not reversed when series was streamed on Netflix. The Guest is one of many examples.
On the other hand, some Netflix originals have seemed to include more explicit content than those originally aired on Korean channels. Squid Game was more violent, My Name more sexual than you normally see.
So all in all it's a mixed bag which doesn't really give a clear picture of Netflix's censorship and content policy. What do you guys think? Where have you noticed an alteration from the aired version, or censorship in the translation/subtitles?
