MAGA sure love someNetflix, at least when it comes to kickin’ the streamer’s butt around for political gain.

With 15 days to go before what looks to be a tight GOP primary vote on who will carry the Republican banner into the fall against Democrat James Talarico for a potentially hotly contested Senate seat,Texasstate Attorney GeneralKen Paxtontoday threw raw red meat to the base with a scorcher of a lawsuit against Netflix.

“Netflix’s endgame is simple and lucrative: get children and families glued to the screen, harvest their data while they are stuck there, and then monetize the data for a handsome profit,” the potentially multi-million suit says. “Netflix quietly built a behavioral-surveillance program of staggering scale. At bottom, this program requires getting Texans and their children glued to the screen and then extracting every possible piece of data about them while they are there,” thejury trial-seeking injunction petition filed today in courtin the second largest state in the union goes on to say.

Tossing around terms like “bait and switch,” “logging company, and “deceptive conduct” amidst accusations of bad faith on the part of theTed Sarandosand Greg Peters-run entertainment giant, Paxton, who has a tiny lead over fifth term seeking incumbent Senator John Cornyn, certainly aims to be a straight shooter – for what it’s worth.Watch on Deadline

Citing repeated violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (with penalties of $10K a violation — do the math), the filing adds: “To accomplish the first goal, Netflix deceptively designs its platform to be addictive. Netflix uses dark patterns to do this discreetly. Dark patterns are subtle features engineered to manipulate users to take the actions Netflix wants them to take.”

In a statement this afternoon, Paxton’s office spotlighted the lucrative bottom line of all this. “Netflix users’ data is essentially shopped across Big Ad Tech’s shadowy network,” the Lone Star AG said, emphasizing the lack of clear consent parents and children give the streamer to profiting from their info. “The company earns billions of dollars every year from secretly selling consumer data.”

Some may say, clutching their pearls or not, that that’s just capitalism in the Digital Era and don’t click Accept on the user agreement if you don’t like it. Others may say it is an outrage. Either way, Netflix respectfully disagrees with the honorable gentleman from the former Republic of Texas, to put it nicely.

“Respectfully to the great state of Texas and Attorney General Paxton, this lawsuit lacks merit and is based on inaccurate and distorted information,” a spokesperson for the streamer said Monday of Paxton’s injunction desiring barrage.

“Netflix takes our members’ privacy seriously and complies with privacy and data‑protection laws everywhere we operate,” they went on to say. “We look forward to addressing the Texas Attorney General’s allegations in court and further explaining our industry-leading, kid‑friendly parental controls and transparent privacy practices.”

Now, while there is no apparent official connection to Heritage Foundation spinoff the Oversight Project’s well-circulatedFedflix: Netflix, The Federal Government, and the New Propaganda Stateanalysis thathelped deep-six earlier this yearany GOP support forthe streamer’s ultimately failed $89 billion acquisition of Warner Brosin Paxton’s suit, they are certainly reading from the same hymn book, if you know what I mean?Donald Trump‘s “good friends” David Ellison and papa Larry Ellison eventually bought all of Warner Bros Discovery witha $111 billon bid.To that, likethe unsuccessful but headline grabbin’ attack by a Texas state D.A. on the streamer several years back over assertions that coming-of-age dramaCutiewas riddled with child pornography, today’s action has culture war burned into it.

Source: Drudge Report