Friday, December 19, 2014

SONY Hacked Over “The Interview”

but all joking aside...
 

We’ve been hearing about the SONY emails that were hacked and the threats by North Korea over the movie, The Interview.” Everyone has an opinion. We shouldn’t show it, it’s too dangerous. We should show it and not cave in to terrorism. We shouldn’t allow our freedom of speech to be violated. And on and on it goes.

I am just a simple person. I have no sake in this issue either way. I rarely go to a movie anymore. I probably wouldn’t go to this one. But, every time I hear a news story about this situation I want to cringe. We do have more important things to focus on in the US and globally. This ridiculous movie it taking time and attention away from far more serious issues.

Here are my thoughts. I think just because we have freedom of speech, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use it responsibly. There has to be some degree of common sense applied when you are planning to open a can of worms. There will be consequences to free speech. Those consequences should have been considered prior to making a moving provoking and antagonizing a man, a tyrant of a communist country, who doesn’t have any love for our country. A man who watches his own people starve while he expects to be treated as a God. A man who has access to nuclear weapons and has alliances with China. A man who would not take kindly to being made a laughing stock in front of the world. Did SONY really believe that a man like this would just do nothing while their movie ridiculed him on an international level? Or didn’t SONY care, thinking what can he possibly do about it? Well, now we are finding out what he an do about it. Their precious, scandalous company emails are being exposed for all the world to see. Who is laughing now? This is just the tip of the iceberg too. I will be willing to bet they have far more damaging emails to release when they feel the time is right. SONY is now so concerned, they are willing to pull a $200 million dollar movie to prevent more embarrassing exposure of their executives. But is this the end of it? Will things get worse? They have set something in motion and don’t have the means to stop it.

Every idea someone in Hollywood has isn’t necessarily a great idea. This is one of them. Those who feel the movie should be shown, despite the threats, really have no idea what the consequences will be. Movie theaters won’t show it because they are now on notice that they may be putting people’s lives at risk. Did we need to be put in this position? Did we need another international problem to deal with right now?  Thanks to SONY we have one.

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