At his final news conference for the rest of the year, President Obama stated that Sony made a mistake when they succumbed to terrorist threats and canceled showing the movie.
“Yes, I think they made a mistake,” Obama said. “We cannot have a society in which a dictator in some place can start imposing censorship in the United States.”
He continued, “Because if somebody is able to intimidate folks out of releasing a movie, imagine what they start doing when they see a documentary that they don’t like or news reports that they don’t like. Or even worse, imagine if producers and distributors and others start engaging in self-censorship because they don’t want to offend…somebody’s sensibilities who probably need to be offended.
“So that’s not who we are. That’s not what America is about,” Obama said.
The movie was scheduled for release on December 25th, but was canceled by Sony after North Korean hackers threatened to cause attacks similar to those of September 11th.
