Sony Canceling 'The Interview' Was A Mistake, Says Obama

During an end-of-year press conference today, President Barack Obama answered a question about the Sony hack — now formally confirmed by the U.S. government as being instigated by North Korea — and in particular Sony's decision to cancel the release of The Interview.

His reply is raising some eyebrows. His exact response was:

"Sony's a corporation. It suffered significant damage. There were threats against some [of its] employees. I am sympathetic to the concerns that they faced. Having said all that, yes I think they made a mistake."

He later continued:

"We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States. Because if somebody is able to intimidate folks out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what they start doing when they see a documentary that they don't like. Or news reports that they don't like."

The President reiterated that he sympathized with Sony's plight, but said that he "wish they'd spoken to me first." He said that had Sony Pictures' Amy Pascal or Sony head honcho Kazuo Hirai consulted with him, he would have advised them not to set a precedent where criminal attacks can intimidate American businesses into changing policy. Obama compared North Korea's cyber-terrorism attack to the Boston Marathon bombing of 2013, where that tragic event did not deter Boston from holding its annual marathon again the next year.

Taking a shot at North Korea's bullying tactics, the President said that like Boston, this cyber-threat shouldn't prevent Sony from releasing a satirical movie "because they don't want to offend the sensibilities of somebody whose sensibilities probably need to be offended."

He later stated that he was a fan of The Interview stars Seth Rogen and James Franco — though he pronounced Franco's name as "Flacco." In under half an hour, "James Flacco" was the #1 trending topic on Twitter. A Twitter parody account for @JamesFlacco was also created, because of course it was.