John Oliver takes aim at Disney-owned streaming service over censorship claims

If you're a big John Oliver fan, you'll likely know that he recently did one of his famous deep dives into India's prime minister, Narendra Modi.

But if you're based in India, you may not have seen it.

"That episode didn't actually air in India," Oliver explained during the latest episode of Last Week Tonight, which broadcast Sunday. "A lot of our viewers over there alerted us to the fact that Hotstar, the streaming service that broadcasts us in India, never uploaded that episode."

Oliver went on to say there was no evidence that the government made them do it, ultimately suggesting that Hotstar — the Disney-owned streaming platform that syndicates HBO content in India — may have been self-censoring.

"What's worse is, it's apparently not even the first time they have censored us," he added. "We've discovered that they've been quietly doing it for a while now, but not for the reason you might expect."

Oliver then launched into segment drawing attention to other times Hotstar has seemingly tweaked parts of Last Week Tonight to remove what might be considered 'negative' Disney references, including a joke about Mickey Mouse's "cocaine problem" and a moment where Oliver talks about Donald Duck having a corkscrew penis.

"Let me say this to Hotstar, right now," Oliver concluded. "If you think that you have to remove anything that reflects poorly on Disney from this show, I have some bad news for you, my friends. I'm fucking Zazu right here! Everything that comes out of this beak is a Disney fact. If I say that Cogsworth collects Nazi memorabilia, guess what? That's canon, baby. That's a Disney fucking fact right there."

Mashable has reached out to Hotstar and Disney for comment.