The Sony
Hack thing confuses me.
Not that
Sony has been hacked. And not that North Korea is suspected in the hacking.
What
confuses me is the reaction:
Fear.
Is there
something I’m missing? Yes, these hackers have made allusions to 9/11 if the
Sony film “The Interview” is released – and it appears Sony has pulled the film
from release after three major cinema chains in the United States said they
would not play the film on is proposed Christmas Day release.
But I’m
reading everywhere that these guys are terrorists. Here’s what David Auerbach
is saying at Slate:
[w]hile this
attack is particularly damaging to Sony’s rank and file, the hack itself poses
no threat to people’s lives or critical infrastructure. But by so effectively
creating a climate of fear and making threats of actual violence, the Guardians
of Peace have raised the specter of genuine cyberterroristic acts to come.
These acts aren’t scary because they’re ingenious, but because they could be
easily replicated by anyone with the right resources and enough malice.
Alison
Willmore, writing at Buzzfeed, has the most ludicrous things to say about the
situation:
The movie
engages with how ludicrous it can be that pop culture can bridge such enormous
gaps between people as well as how unstable it can be as common ground, but it
still ultimately has faith in pop culture’s inclusiveness and ability to shake
the world. And in this case, it kind of has, though not in the way anyone might
have guessed. “You know what’s more destructive than a nuclear bomb?” Kim asks
quavery sincerity in the movie. “Words.” Not to mention jokes.
Unless I’m
mistaken, the film isn’t meant to bridge cultures – it’s just entertainment. A
paranoid hermit state may not see it that way, granted. But it’s no worse than
North Korean propaganda out there depicting the United States as a vast Detroit
landscape of shattered houses and factories where the beneficent North Koreans
are there to pass out cakes to the starving masses.
Yes, we
ought to laugh it off. That’s our nature. But then again, our nature is also to
use predator drones on Muslim weddings, spy on every last person in the world
and endorse torture. (And we’re also not above conducting cyber attacks of our
own. Stuxnet, anyone?) So maybe I understand the North Korean paranoia. I just
don’t understand the paranoia I’m seeing here.
Slate also
wants hacked material from Sony not to be published in the United States by
media outlets who would publish any hacked material if it came from, say,
Julian Assange or Chelsea Manning – but they want to draw a line here. Why?
(And it seems Slate, in publishing this piece by Jacob Weisberg, wants to have
its cake and eat it too. Justin Peters, writing at Slate, seems to think the provenance of the hack shouldn't proclude publishing if there is real news interest present.
But the
decision to desist from publishing this stuff should be based on ethics and
respect for the right of free expression, not legal pressure. News outlets
should obviously cover the story of the hack itself, the effect on Sony, the
question of how it happened, and who’s responsible. This is a big and
legitimate news story. But when it comes to exploiting the fruits of the
digital break-in, journalists should voluntarily withhold publication. They
shouldn’t hold back because they’re legally obligated to—I don’t believe they
are—but because there’s no ethical justification for publishing this damaging,
stolen material. (I am articulating my opinion here, not Slate’s policy. While
the magazine has been judicious in its coverage of the emails, it did publish
this article about indications of a gender pay gap among Sony executives and
the editors will continue to apply their own judgment about when and whether to
cover stories arising from the hack as they emerge.)
Weisberg
wouldn’t be saying this if the information was being leaked from, say a big oil
company or the Koch brothers.
As Will
Macavoy says in The Newsroom, we as a nation didn’t used to scare so easily.
Why be scared now?
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