Obama Slams Sony for Nixing ‘The Interview,’ Wishes Company Had Reached Out

“If somebody can prevent a satirical movie from being released, imagine what might happen if they see a documentary they don’t like…or if producers and distributors and others start engaging in self-censorship because they don’t want to offend the sensibilities of someone whose sensibilities probably need to be offended. That’s not America. That’s not who we are. I’m sympathetic that Sony, as a private company, was worried about liabilities. I wish they had spoken to me first. I would’ve told them, ‘Do not get into a pattern where you’re intimidated by these criminal attacks.'” 

“Let’s talk about the specifics of what we now know. We can confirm that North Korea engaged in this attack. I think it says something interesting about North Korea that they decided to have this assault on a movie studio about a satirical movie starring Seth Rogen and James Franco — about the regime that we’re dealing with. I love Seth and I love James. But the notion that this was a threat to them gives you a sense of the kind of regime we’re talking about here. We will respond proportionally.” 

“We need to set up some clear rules about how the Internet operates. Part of the problem is that you have weak states that can engage in these attacks. That’s part of what makes this issue of cyber security so urgent. That’s why Congress needs to work with us to get a bill passed that allows for the kind of information sharing we need. If we don’t prevent these attacks from taking place, this won’t be just affecting movies; it will be affecting our entire economy.”

“I’ve got a long list of movies I’m going to be watching. I never release my full movie list.”

Watch the live stream of the conference below:

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