It tells Python to ignore the newline immediately after the backslash. The resulting string starts with Content-Type: not \nContent-Type: ::
>>> '''\ This is the first line. This is the second line. ''' 'This is the first line.\nThis is the second line.\n' >>> ''' ... This is the first line. ... This is the second line. ... ''' '\nThis is the first line.\nThis is the second line.\n'
Notice how the two results differ; the first does not have a newline \n at the beginning, and the other does.
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