https://youtube.com/watch?v=kSykN_g7l6Y
President Obama finally weighed in on last month’s devastating hack attack against Sony Corporation, saying the company “made a mistake” by pulling a movie in face of hacker threats and wishing that the executives had “spoken to [him] first.”
With the FBI set to accuse the North Korean regime for the attack, the president lamented Sony’s decision to pull The Interview, a dark comedy revolving around the assassination of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
Obama noted that Sony is a private company and has suffered immensely under the cyber assault. “Having said that,” he continued, “yes, I think they made a mistake.”
“We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States,” the president later said, noting the dangerous precedent it sets in other fields — particularly journalism. “That’s not who we are,” he continued. “That’s not what America is about.”
“Again, I’m sympathetic that Sony, as a private company, was worried about liabilities and this, that, and the other,” Obama said. “I wish they had spoken to me first. I would have told them, ‘Do not get into a pattern in which you’re intimidated by these kinds of criminal attacks.’”