Was Netflix CEO arrested on child pornography charges? Fact Check

ByCraig Haley

Rumours on social media claim the that Netflix CEO has been arrested on child pornography charges.

FALSE

Earlier versions of this rumour correctly identified the Netflix CEO as Reed Hastings, but incorrectly states he was arrested on child pornography charges. Latter versions of this rumour claimed the arrested Netflix CEO was called Kim Martin Morrow, who doesn’t exist.

An example of the rumour as it appeared on social media is below.

Kim Martin Morrow the CEO of Netflix has just been charged with 15 charges for child pornography and 31,000 files have been found on his personal computers for child porn from ages 8 and as young as toddlers. So, I think the investigation was needed. #SaveOurChildren

It is likely such rumours started after the Netflix “Cuties” controversy. Cuties is a French movie broadcasting on the movie streaming platform that has raised some controversy over the issue of over-sexualising children (the movie is about four 11-year olds who enter a talent competition as dancers.) Senator Ted Cruz had even asked for an investigation as to whether Netflix or the movie’s production crew broke laws pertaining to child pornography (though the production company has confirmed that no underage nudity is present in the film.)

Amid the controversy, rumours began spreading across social media claiming that the Netflix CEO Reed Hastings had been arrested on child pornography charges. Such rumours were categorically false, and appear to be made up from thin air. We could locate no media or police reports about such as arrest.


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And if the claims couldn’t reach further from reality, subsequent rumours then misidentified the Netflix CEO as someone called “Kim Martin Morrow”. We have no idea who that is supposed to be, since there is no CEO or senior employee with that name working for Netflix.

Since neither Reed Hastings nor the phantom Kim Martin Morrow have been arrested on such charges, we rank these claims as false.