Sony wrong to cave in to North Korea says Obama

BARACK Obama last night criticised Sony for pulling a film about North Korean leader Kim Jong-un following a cyber attack by the secretive state.

Speaking after the FBI confirmed the communist country was behind the attack, the President insisted that the US would ‘respond’.

He said Sony ‘made a mistake’ by cancelling the Christmas Day release of The Interview.

He added that he wished senior executives had spoken to him first, because caving in so easily is ‘not who we are’ – despite the computer hackers warning of a 9/11-style atrocity.

He said: ‘We cannot have a society where some dictator some place can start imposing censorship here in the United States,’ adding that ‘they caused a lot of damage and we will respond’.

Mr Obama spoke out as the FBI said it had traced the software used in the attack back to Pyongyang, suggesting that North Korea was responsible. In a statement, the FBI said that ‘such acts

‘Hacking is an act of war’

of intimidation fall outside the bounds of acceptable state behaviour’.

Mr Obama would only say that America would ‘respond proportionally’, but Republican Senator John McCain called the hacking an ‘act of war’.

In his speech, the President also made a vocal defence of freedom of speech and drew a parallel with the Boston Marathon – which went ahead the year after a terrorist bomb went off on the finish line, killing three people and injuring dozens more.

He said: ‘If somebody’s going to intimidate them for releasing a satirical movie, imagine what’s going to happen when there’s a documentary they don’t like.

‘Even worse, if producers and distributors start engaging in self-censorship because they don’t want to offend the sensibilities of somebody who frankly probably needs their sensibilities offended.

‘That’s not who we are. That’s not who Americans are. Again, I’m sympathetic to Sony ... but I wish they had spoken to me first.’

Earlier, the FBI confirmed the hack on Sony bore a resemblance to a round of North Korean cyber attacks on South Korean banks and media companies in March 2013.