Netflix Cancellations Surge After Reed Hastings Donates Millions to Kamala Harris

Donald Trump supporters appear to have quit Netflix en masse after one of the online streaming giant’s co-founders publicly threw his backing behind Kamala Harris.

Reed Hastings, chairman of Netflix and a longtime Democratic supporter, announced his endorsement on July 22, later telling The Information he’d also donated some $7 million to the Harris campaign.

Soon after, the hashtag #CancelNetflix started trending on X, in many cases accompanied by photos of people shuttering their accounts, and by July 26 the streaming service had suffered its worst spike in subscription cancellations so far this year, according to Bloomberg.

The rate of account closure, thought to have averaged out at 2.8 percent over that month, apparently even beat that which followed Netflix’s decision to phase out its most basic subscription tier in July last year.

It fell short, however, of the one prompted by conservative attacks on the platform in 2020 for streaming Cuties, a French coming-of-age film that critics argued served to “exploit” underage children.

With the streaming giant’s next financial results anticipated toward the middle of October, it’s difficult to assess how far the cancellations may have impacted revenue.

In any case, Trump supporters seeking to boycott the platform were arguably a little late to the party, given Hastings has hardly made a secret of his pro-Democrat leanings in the past—openly backing Hillary Clinton for the presidency in 2016 as well as donating roughly $3 million to defeat a recall campaign against California Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2021.