The 23-year old company began conforming to such controversial censorship requests after 2015, in order to better conform to various countries' laws and societal norms, according to Axios. It's the first such revelation of active censorship admitted by the company.

The majority of government requests for removal came from the religiously diverse but staunchly morally conservative island city-state of Singapore. Other movies or series were taken down at the request of New Zealand, Vietnam, Germany, Brazil and Saudi Arabia — the latter instance for politically embarrassing and sensitive jokes about crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. 

Netflix conformed, for example, to a Saudi government request last year for the 2019 removal of comedian Hasan Minhaj "Patriot Act" standup special, related to references to the state-sponsored murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings had defended the controversial move by saying, "We're not in the truth to power business, we're in the entertainment business."