Under Article 6, Paragraph 1 of Saudi Arabia’s Anti-Cyber Crime Law, the following is punishable by up to five years in prison: “Production, preparation, transmission, or storage of material impinging on public order, religious values, public morals, and privacy, through the information network or computers.”

Think “First Amendment.” Then invert it.

Last week, we learned that the Kingdom had alerted Netflix that it had violated the statute with an episode of its comedy show “Patriot Act,” starring Hasan Minhaj, a comedian and American Muslim. How? Mr. Minhaj dared to question Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, both for the C.I.A.’s conclusion he ordered the murder of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi and for Saudi war atrocities in Yemen.

Maybe the Saudi complaint wasn’t all that shocking. Like any authoritarian monarch worth his bone saw, Prince Mohammed doesn’t brook criticism, which is why he has overseen the Saudis’ increased jailing of journalists, critics and rivals.

The shock came with Netflix’s supine compliance. After pulling the episode from its Saudi feed, the streaming service told The Financial Times it was simply responding to “a valid legal request.”