December 23, 2014
e Entertainment
Hackers successfully infiltrated Sony’s private email server and slowly began releasing one embarrassing email after another. Suddenly, the world learned that studio executives considered Angelina Jolie a spoiled brat, Denzel Washington a box-office weakling simply because he’s black, among other gems. Supposedly, hackers were withholding the juiciest stuff for a grand finale that was set to explode unless Sony permanently canceled the Seth Rogan and James Franco laugher (again I used the term loosely) about assassinating North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Hackers went on to threaten top level Sony execs saying, “We want everything related to the movie, including its trailers, as well as its full version down from any website hosting them immediately.”
By Friday, Sony caved.
Apparently, the emails that hackers were withholding must have been filled with details that were too damning for Sony to withstand publicly. The movie studio almost immediately obliged the hacker’s demands, by deleting the movie’s Twitter and Facebook pages and by wiping all “Interview” footage from its YouTube page. The studio was whipped into submission. The hackers won.
For the record, Sony failed miserably here. A movie about assassinating a sitting world leader should have never been given the green light in the first place. Had North Korea or China made a movie about assassinating ANY sitting U.S. president, none of us would have been laughing. In fact, it may have prompted World War III. So, this movie should have never been made — but since it was, did Sony make the right move in canceling it?
According to the FBI, the hack job was indeed done by North Korea. The hackers, who went by the name the Guardians of Peace (GOP) not only threatened to release more embarrassing emails, but they also promised 9/11-type violence at U.S. movie theaters showing the film. Sony did not want a comedy (…loosely) to risk public safety, so they made the difficult choice to scrap the film altogether and to shut down all discussion regarding it. Good move, right? Hmmm…not so fast!
e Entertainment
The film’s sudden death opened the flood gates of Hollywood’s wrath. Author Stephen King, talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, actors George Clooney and Rob Lowe, among others, took to the Internet to brow beat Sony for wussing out. Even President Obama publicly denounced Sony for caving to web terrorism.
“I wish they had spoken to me first,” the president said in a news conference. “I would have told them do not get into a pattern in which you’re intimidated by these kinds of criminal attacks.”
As President Obama pointed out, Sony’s cowering over Internet threats opened Pandora’s box and set a precedent regarding a new type of terrorism. If a foreign government or entity doesn’t like a movie, a book, a song or whatever, all they’d have to do is hack the offender, embarrass them a bit, make a couple of wild threats, then wait for them to surrender — all without the perpetrator ever leaving their easy chair. Would America accept this new form of free speech censorship?
President Obama promised a swift response to North Korea’s hack job “in the manner and at the time of our choosing.” As of yesterday, North Korea’s entire Internet service went completely dark. Was this America’s retaliation so soon? They’ll never tell…
Was Sony correct to cancel “The Interview” in the interest of public safety? Or did they fail miserably by showing the world a brand new form of Internet terrorism?
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