The president says Sony shouldn’t have killed The Interview.
Larry Downing / Reuters
President Obama criticized Sony for pulling The Interview at his end-of-year news conference Friday.
"I think they made a mistake," Obama said.
The president said he was "sympathetic to the concerns" at Sony after a massive hack exposed embarrassing internal emails and other corporate secrets. On Friday, the FBI said North Korea was responsible for the hack.
Despite the cyberattack, Obama said canceling the release of the film was caving to North Korean demands.
"We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States," he said.
Sony pulled The Interview after threats of terrorist attacks at screenings of the film. Obama contrasted the move with the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, when the city decided to continue the annual event despite the terror threat.
"We can't start changing our patterns of behavior any more than we stop going to football games because there might be the possibility of a terrorist attack," he said.
Obama also poked fun at the North Korean government for its reaction to The Interview.
"I think it says something interesting about North Korea that they decided to have the state mount an all-out assault on a movie studio because of a satirical movie," he said. "The notion that that was a threat to them, I think, gives you some sense of the kind of regime we're talking about here."
No comments:
Post a Comment