Sony pulls The Interview, but was it the honourable thing to do?

(Transcript from The Viewpoint Podcast)

Last month, Sony Pictures' computer systems were hacked, and the FBI now says that North Korea was behind the hack, a charge North Korea denies, though they suggest some of their sympathisers may have been involved. This week, with some US cinema chains pulling out of showing the Sony Pictures film The Interview, a comedy about an attempted assassination of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, Sony decided to pull the release of the film. It will not now go out to cinemas worldwide on Christmas Day.

North Korea claimed that Sony were “abetting a terrorist act” by making the film. Err, perhaps they know something we don't and two journalists actually did manage to kill Kim Jong Un, and one of his doubles has had to stand in for him. I mean, with North Korea not being transparent with information, who'd really know?

Whether North Korea were involved in the hack directly, indirectly, or not at all, the actions of Sony, a company that originated in Japan, where honour is a big thing, their actions this week in pulling the film, strike me as less than honourable. Political pressure is not something that any company should ever give in to, and their actions may have just enboldened North Korea into thinking they can get away with other cyber actions like this one.