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[Ampersands]

I agree with Sorkin.

It seems crazy that people are OK with this information being distributed as if it's sticking it to some faceless, corporate entity. But most of the people that are violated and will be affected by this are innocent employees.

 

[JABEE]

I agree with Sorkin.

It seems crazy that people are OK with this information being distributed as if it's sticking it to some faceless, corporate entity. But most of the people that are violated and will be affected by this are innocent employees.

Finding out that people that Sony Executives think Adam Sandler is worthless is this generation's Pentagon Papers.

"Oh wait, what did they say about Will Smith's kid? Oh, no he didn't."

This is totally worth scouring through stolen private emails of random Sony employees.

 

[shink]

I'm disappointed at how willing the media are to get a scoop from illegally obtained information.
It gives the impression the media think the hack is acceptable. I wonder how much they would report if they were the ones exposed.

 

[El Topo]

It seems crazy that people are OK with this information being distributed as if it's sticking it to some faceless, corporate entity. But most of the people that are violated and will be affected by this are innocent employees.

People (in general) are not okay with the hack, people are not okay with employees getting affected or violated by it. I haven't seen anything that would indicate that. People are however interested in the shady shit that goes behind closed doors, such as sexism within the company. There is however, I must admit that, quite an amount of people that also finds the other stuff (such as the gossip) satisfying.

Do I think the media coverage is good? No. Do I think all the shit that they're reporting should be reported? No. Do I think it is per se wrong for the media to use this information at all? I don't know, not necessarily.

 

[Feep]

I just don't know if I think a world is possible where you have a dump of information like that, and the whole human race says "let's not look at it... Because morals".

Yeah. This stuff is built into who we are as a culture. I understand exactly where he's coming from, but it's just so infeasible. The kind of round rejection he's speaking of could only take place after hundreds of years of positive cultural growth from this point. As much as I like to consider myself a little more morally conscious than most people, I'll admit I looked at quite a few of the E-mails with significant interest.

 

[markot]

People looking at it is one thing, the news organizations reporting on it is quite another.

There are many things that 'people' look at that the news media dont touch, for a large variety of reasons.

 

[Can Crusher]

I have no sympathy for Sony Pictures here, it's an entertainment company. The things being leaked or being paid attention to are all business related, and if the livelihood of the involved are at risk then that's on Sony's handling of the situation moving forward.

Independent bloggers were going to blow this wide open in any case. Sorkin is also using textbook political rhetoric, by making the association between the press and the hackers threats.

All Sony needs is to get ahead of the situation, rebuild their image and work a better security solution.

 

[LCGeek]

I understand that news outlets routinely use stolen information. That’s how we got the Pentagon Papers, to use an oft-used argument. But there is nothing in these documents remotely rising to the level of public interest of the information found in the Pentagon Papers.

Just not true as I highly doubt angelina jolie didn't find some of the quotes not to be useful to her. How about black americans who get to see the attitudes of executives that buy their movies, that's not of public interest.

The sentiment I get and don't agree but talk about being a gatekeeper and deciding something for others that quite frankly he should mind his business on. Sony played with fire and got burned I don't like the situation but a lot of it could've been avoided by good behavior or good security not gonna cry for this company or some involved.

 

[linsivvi]

I agree with Sorkin, but the problem is that the line between Hollywood and news has been blurring for years and, like another poster said, Hollywood isn't exactly the epicenter for morality either.

 

[Rymuth]

Sorkin's just mad he won't be able to do an awful episode of The Newsroom about it.

I was thinking the *SAME* thing, Bert. XD

 

[thepotatoman]

I always try and seperate privacy issues into dignity and power issues to simplify things, since thats pretty much the only reason privacy is important. And I guess I'm just having hard time seeing a journalist reporting on a corporation being a problem from either viewpoint.

Corporations aren't human and so they don't have a dignity to protect, nor are they at risk of specifically journalists having power over them by using secrets that have already been made public.

Maybe if journalists kept the names of individuals more hidden it would make everyone happy?

 

[King Tubby]

This is probably the best line. No one really cares about privacy in the US, as long as it's not our own privacy that's being violated. If someone else's privacy is being violated for our own enjoyment, then we all eat it up like it's an all you can read buffet.

To an extent, but I think Sorkin misses the point there. Just because we don't respect the privacy of others when it comes to leaked documents doesn't mean we're hypocrites for not wanting the NSA reading our private information. It means that we know that people can't be trusted with access to all that information without inevitably abusing their power and seeing what they shouldn't.

 

[duckroll]

I always try and seperate privacy issues into dignity and power issues to simplify things, since thats pretty much the only reason privacy is important. And I guess I'm just having hard time seeing a journalist reporting on a corporation being a problem from either viewpoint.

Corporations aren't human and so they don't have a dignity to protect, nor are they at risk of specifically journalists having power over them by using secrets that have already been made public.

Maybe if journalists kept the names of individuals more hidden it would make everyone happy?

That's a respectable viewpoint, but it doesn't really relate to the facts of the reality here. A good majority of articles being generated would not be published at all if they redacted all the names because there would be no "story" at all.

Here are a bunch of recent headlines from Gawker:

"Channing Tatum Writes Emails Exactly Like You Think He Writes Emails"

"Hollywood Executives Think Jaden and Willow Smith Are Crazy, Too"

"Sony Exec: "Broke" Aaron Sorkin Is "Sleeping With" Author"

"Sony Leak: Nikki Finke Is a "Pathetic, Hateful Person""

"Sony Leak: Studio Exec Calls Kevin Hart a Greedy "Whore""

"New Sony Hack Docs Reveal the Ridiculous Aliases of a Bunch of Actors"


It is clear that these are only stories because people love to read gossip and nothing is more exciting for some people than seeing venom and slander thrown around to generate drama or just to have something to mock a person with. There's no corporation here. These are all actual human beings involved. If you remove the names and take the celebrity factor away, you're left with nothing, because in reality people say bad shit about other people all the time!

 

[Scoot McNairy]

"Hollywood Executives Think Jaden and Willow Smith Are Crazy, Too"

To be fair, this story is acceptable because it's hilarious.

 

[duckroll]

To be fair, this story is acceptable because it's hilarious.

It's actually not. It's really sad and depressing. There's no "story" there other than an email linking to an existing interview from last month: http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/17/jaden-and-willow-smith-exclusive-joint-interview/

We're talking about two teenagers, aged 14 and 16, who have never had proper schooling and been indoctrinated under Scientology stuff by their parents since birth. They have a totally insane view of the world and are comfortable with sharing it because they actually think it's right and proper. Really saddening.

 

[Alx]

"New Sony Hack Docs Reveal the Ridiculous Aliases of a Bunch of Actors"

Reminds me of the Julia Roberts character in Notting Hill who would go with "Miss Bambi" or "Mrs Flintstone".
Fortunately that one will be easy to solve, they'll just have to find other pseudos.

 

[Tacitus_]

Here are a bunch of recent headlines from Gawker:

It is clear that these are only stories because people love to read gossip and nothing is more exciting for some people than seeing venom and slander thrown around to generate drama or just to have something to mock a person with.

Gawker is the yellow press of the web so that's hardly surprising.

 

[Faddy]

My thinking on this is if you have a publicist employed or on retainer it is fair game to publish anything truthful about you.

If this information didn't come from a hack but a disgruntled employee who was leaking details to show the bad working conditions at Sony would it be any different. People will say an inside source is different form an "illegal hack" but the insider is breaking all sorts of NDA and other contractual clauses. Outside of press releases and "controlled leaks" every other insider scoop could be described as illegal.

In some ways Sony deserves this hack due to the way they manage their IT systems, they publicly said they don't spend money on InfoSec so it shouldn't be a surprise when things like this happen. If journalists refused to report on the hacks then there would be no punishment for Sony for playing fast and loose with data.

Are some publications going over the top, sure but that happens all the time and the only way to stop it is if people don't read it but clearly that is not the case. We are marketed stars instead of films and this is the result, people want to know everything about the actor because the studios have conditioned us to. Now they want to shut that door because the publicity is bad? That is not going to happen.

 

[Joni]

My thinking on this is if you have a publicist employed or on retainer it is fair game to publish anything truthful about you.

So that would include stuff like the leaked nudes and the News of the World hack scandal.

 

[Faddy]

So that would include stuff like the leaked nudes and the News of the World hack scandal.

NotW hack scandal is different because the journalists were doing the hacking, other newspapers reporting on the content of the NotW hacks is fine.

Nudes. That is more difficult and there are specific laws in many places that give rights to the subject of the pictures and not simply copyright to the photographer so that is going well beyond copyright infringement in some cases. I don't think it would be acceptable to publish hacked photos in all cases but definitely in some. However publishing information that nude photos have been leaked or exist is totally fine.

 

[Kinyou]

As demented and criminal as it is, at least the hackers are doing it for a cause. The press is doing it for a nickel.

Hot damn!

 

[Ominym]

I agree with Sorkin, but while mulling this over I cannot think of any situation in which what he wants works.

Hypothetically, lets say all major news organizations ignore the leaks. Inevitably, less sizable internet-based organizations run with the stories. What happens then? People begin claiming collusion between the big media sites and Hollywood because they ignore the story? I mean, sure, they can all run stories saying that they don't condone the leaks but people aren't going to just buy that. It seems like there's no possible way for a news organization or the industry to win here short changing the way the world works.

Come to think of it, the only "win" scenario I see here is if one or two organizations choose not to cover it and publish stories saying so. In the process they throw other organizations under the bus granting themselves a better standing with some of the public. But even still, this is a false victory in that the story is still out there and it requires a greater system wide problem for two or so organizations to succeed.

It's an awful situation to be in. Glad I don't have to be the one making decisions on how to handle it.

 

[Joni]

NotW hack scandal is different because the journalists were doing the hacking, other newspapers reporting on the content of the NotW hacks is fine.

They would be reporting on the same illegal information so why make that distinction?

Nudes. That is more difficult and there are specific laws in many places that give rights to the subject of the pictures and not simply copyright to the photographer so that is going well beyond copyright infringement in some cases. I don't think it would be acceptable to publish hacked photos in all cases but definitely in some. However publishing information that nude photos have been leaked or exist is totally fine.

Email is also copyrighted. It might seem strange, but every mail you send is in essence protected under copyright law.

Hypothetically, lets say all major news organizations ignore the leaks. Inevitably, less sizable internet-based organizations run with the stories. What happens then? People begin claiming collusion between the big media sites and Hollywood because they ignore the story? I mean, sure, they can all run stories saying that they don't condone the leaks but people aren't going to just buy that. It seems like there's no possible way for a news organization or the industry to win here short changing the way the world works.

They can report on the 'facts' instead of the leaks. There was a leak, Sony is working with FBI, ...

 

[ctothej]

As others have said, the MPAA practically bribing Attorney Generals to attack Google (hoping Google will straight up ban access to websites the MPAA don't like). That's a matter of public interest. I don't like the way we found out, but it's better that people are aware huge corporations are spending money to restrict our internet access.

As for the Hollywood drama... yeah, that's just gossip. Emails about which director so-and-so demands to work with shouldn't be published.

 

[wildfire]

Given time the public won't either. All they'll remember is the juicy tabloid bullshit.

If people couldn't summon up two shits to give about the NSA monitoring their own communications, they aren't going to care about bribery of public officials by some big corporations regarding another big corporation.

But, hey, that Spectre script!

Sadly this is too true. I would like to add most people would forget until something of major consequence came out of the leaking of Social Security numbers and addresses. Most people don't care because they don't see this information or the act of the information being leaked as something that is remotely relevant to them. We have law enforcement agents we assume would proactively look into these specific problems.

I'm disappointed at how willing the media are to get a scoop from illegally obtained information.
It gives the impression the media think the hack is acceptable. I wonder how much they would report if they were the ones exposed.

I can easily see some networks spinning it into moral outrage.

 

[-Pyromaniac-]

This reads like a rant Jim or Will would yell.

 

[Faddy]

They would be reporting on the same illegal information so why make that distinction?


Email is also copyrighted. It might seem strange, but every mail you send is in essence protected under copyright law.


They can report on the 'facts' instead of the leaks. There was a leak, Sony is working with FBI, ...

Information can't be illegal. The press is free to report on anything (unless some rich arsehole gets a superinjunction). The distinction is the crime is hacking, not reporting the hacks.

Everything is copyright, this post is copyright although in the TOS I probably have granted all sorts of usage rights and my first born to EviLore.

They are reporting on the facts, they are telling us what was leaked. They are the same thing. Sony could sue every press organisation out there for downloading and sharing their copyright like they do with music and movie torrenters. They have asked companies to stop, if the don' the next step is an injunction to stop the reporting and sue for copyright infringement.

Media companies won't balk. The Guardian is basking in its Pulitzer for reporting on leaked, stolen, hacked, copyrighted works. The US government couldn't stop them from publishing. Sony would be hard pressed to find a court that would agree that the majority of this leak is not in the public interest. Some things like SS numbers should be off limits to even the least ethical journalist but IMO the employees of SOny should be suing the company for breaches of their personal data.

 

[Wanace]

It doesn't matter if the big news outlets reported it or not, the information would still get out through people looking at it themselves.

The problems inside Sony are a snapshot of what's probably going on inside every Hollywood studio and probably every huge corporation. If the types of issues with glass ceilings, sexual harassment, scheming with lobbyists etc. are brought to light, maybe things will change.

Of course, it would diminish the hackers' intended effect if they didn't report on it. But the news would get out either way.

 

[Blackhead]

A couple things:

• It has still not been determined who did the hacks but the FBI has said it's unlikely to be North Korea. It could very well be ex-Sony IT employees who stole the data and are leaking it i.e. this could be some type of whistle blower situation
  
• This is not like the iCloud nudes. The iCloud nudes were private photos stolen from personal phones/email accounts and their publication was a 'sex crime' to quote Jlaw. The tabloids aren't saints, they do publish 'nude' photos of celebrities captured by paparazzi if they can claim the celebrity was in a 'public' place/view (recall the scandal of the duchess of Wales in her private home photographed from afar with a zoom lens) but stolen private photos are a no-go. Afaik, there haven't been any nudes published from this Sony hack
  
• This is not like the UK phone/voicemail scandals. In UK phone/voicemail the news tabloids were wrong because they did/paid for the hacking directly themselves. Afaik, the Sony hack was not paid for or perpetuated by any news organization.

 

[Frog-fu]

I am in agreement with Sorkin. This type of mass leak is, to my knowledge, unprecedented, or at the very least so wholly uncommon that both the outlets and the public should tread carefully. The attack on Sony and the way we deal with it leaves us all open to a massive slippery slope. We're not talking about whistleblowers, concerned parties or even hackitivists leaking documents that are of public interest. We're talking about a malicious attack executed by a group of hackers with alleged ties to the North Korean government, a group that has made ominous threats to their targets and their families, and who are counting on our curiosity prevailing over our morality. Yes, it is easy to treat corporations as faceless entities, but is it right? Real people with real lives are affected by this, potentially catastrophically. Private and sensitive information and correspondence that is of no relevance to the public are being put out there for the rest of the world to judge in order to discourage satire and freedom expression. How is indirectly supporting that right? It's a conundrum.

I'm not saying we should treat all that's been revealed in the leaks as tainted fruit and pretend it doesn't exist, that would be unrealistic, but I am saying that we do not need to know how much Sony employees are paid. We don't need to know where they live, how to contact them or what medical conditions they may have. None of that is our business.

Impropriety, corruption, fraud - these things matter. The rest does not, and going forward I think it'd be best if that's what outlets focused on.

 

[Joni]

They are reporting on the facts, they are telling us what was leaked. They are the same thing.

They aren't reporting on the facts, they're reporting on the gossipy mails. There are very few articles on what happened compared to what Sony was gossiping about. One of them requires downloading illegally attained information. Oh well, I wonder what they would do if it happened to one of them, for instance how Gawker would act if they got hacked.

 

[Kinyou]

• This is not like the iCloud nudes. The iCloud nudes were private photos stolen from personal phones/email accounts and their publication was a 'sex crime' to quote Jlaw. The tabloids aren't saints, they do publish 'nude' photos of celebrities captured by paparazzi if they can claim the celebrity was in a 'public' place/view (recall the scandal of the duchess of Wales in her private home photographed from afar with a zoom lens) but stolen private photos are a no-go. Afaik, there haven't been any nudes published from this Sony hack

Actually I remember a whole bunch of tabloids refusing to print those pictures. Tabloids can grow a conscience when it's about invasion of privacy, they just seem to set those lines rather arbitrarily.

 

[Tobor]

Network was released almost 40 years ago, the era of debating journalistic integrity in the media is long past.

Yes, the media is out to make a buck. Yes, the public will have a desire to read what amounts to an early draft of a celebrity tell all book. Yes, there is no journalistic integrity left. None of this is particularly surprising.

 

[Alucrid]

But knowing the aliases of celebrities made my life worth living again

 

[Aklamarth]

Yeah, let's just pretend it didn't happen. Makes sense.


</irony>

 

[thefro]

Some of the stuff is newsworthy on its own and deserves to be reported (i.e. MPAA & Attorney generals, allegations of harassment, etc.)

The gossip stuff would be reported by tabloid rags that operate with different standards.

 

[MHWilliams]

Network was released almost 40 years ago, the era of debating journalistic integrity in the media is long past.

Yes, the media is out to make a buck. Yes, the public will have a desire to read what amounts to an early draft of a celebrity tell all book. Yes, there is no journalistic integrity left. None of this is particularly surprising.

Really? Are you a refugee from an alternate reality?

 

[ThLunarian]

Wagging a finger at the media like this seems comparable to wagging a finger at people who pirate movies, games, and music. The internet makes both of those exercises seem pointless and naive, even if you do have the moral high ground.

The discussion I'm more interested in is, what happens now? How do we defend against foreign countries cyber-attacking American corporations, when it's a given that leaks like this WILL get reported on? I have no idea but I'd like to hear what others think.

 

[captive]

He's totally right. But it's just too bad that there's the world you would like to live in, and the world we actually live in. The actual problem isn't media covering the Sony hack so passionately, the actual problem is that we have a media culture which celebrates this behavior, and it has existed for decades.

Exactly. The media and i guess the public loves to build celebrities up and then are sure quick to pounce to tear them back down if and when they make a mistake.

So much for ever getting a good review from Variety again. And so much for our national outrage over the National Security Agency reading our stuff. It turns out some of us have no problem with it at all. We just vacated that argument.

This is so true.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

I'm disappointed at how willing the media are to get a scoop from illegally obtained information.
It gives the impression the media think the hack is acceptable. I wonder how much they would report if they were the ones exposed.

Wikileaks information on the US war efforts and The UK Guardian's Snowden pieces were also obtained illegally. Not that this stuff is anywhere near the same gravity, but whistle-blowing isn't always clean.

 

[afternoon delight]

If you close your eyes you can imagine the hackers sitting in a room, combing through the documents to find the ones that will draw the most blood. And in a room next door are American journalists doing the same thing. As demented and criminal as it is, at least the hackers are doing it for a cause. The press is doing it for a nickel.

Ice bucket cold.

 

[Abounder]

The Donald Sterling defense. It sucks to get hacked and to have your dirty laundry aired out, but good luck trying to brainwash the big media into your "movie moments".

If you close your eyes you can imagine the hackers sitting in a room, combing through the documents to find the ones that will draw the most blood. And in a room next door are American journalists doing the same thing. As demented and criminal as it is, at least the hackers are doing it for a cause. The press is doing it for a nickel.

Also sounds like a biopic to me, or in other words: typical Hollywood

 

[Maninthemirror]

i read that in the voice of the POTUS chief of staff in a west wing episode

 

[ItIsOkBro]

i think this is 1:1 comparable to the icloud shenanigans. private emails, private photos, it's all private.

 

[Blackhead]

So much for ever getting a good review from Variety again. And so much for our national outrage over the National Security Agency reading our stuff. It turns out some of us have no problem with it at all. We just vacated that argument.

This is so true false.

ftfy

Wikileaks information on the US war efforts and The UK Guardian's Snowden pieces were also obtained illegally. Not that this stuff is anywhere near the same gravity, but whistle-blowing isn't always clean.

Yes, that Sorkin line about the NSA is the dumbest argument in the whole article, since that was revealed by stolen information too.

 

[Buddha Beam]

I could be wrong, but aren't they sending these stories directly to the news outlets, rather than just dumping everything out in the open for the public to trawl through? IF that's the case, then yeah... I feel like there should be a lot more discretion exercised on the part of the various media outlets. They got this information from a country that's basically a criminal organization with a clear agenda.

If there is some legitimately news-worthy information, then yes, report on it. Like the MPAA and state AGs colluding to target Google, for example. But shit like, "Channing Tatum sent an email asking to be in Ghostbusters!" is the kind of thing that, while maybe interesting, offers nothing of value to the public.

 

[Stumpokapow]

This is probably the best line. No one really cares about privacy in the US, as long as it's not our own privacy that's being violated. If someone else's privacy is being violated for our own enjoyment, then we all eat it up like it's an all you can read buffet.

I don't think it's a salient argument. Corporations aren't people; and people acting in their capacity as corporate officers do not necessarily have the same expectation of privacy as random people off the street. I'm sure if someone hacked a bunch of personal emails there'd be no shortage of people interested in the lurid details, but in the meantime what they actually hacked was largely emails related to the corporate activities of an oligopoly entertainment firm, and maybe half of the disclosures so far have had to do with abusive treatment of employees, some of which has been gendered or racialized. Hardly the slam dunk comparison Sorkin portrays it as.

 

[daveo42]

I could be wrong, but aren't they sending these stories directly to the news outlets, rather than just dumping everything out in the open for the public to trawl through? IF that's the case, then yeah... I feel like there should be a lot more discretion exercised on the part of the various media outlets. They got this information from a country that's basically a criminal organization with a clear agenda.

If there is some legitimately news-worthy information, then yes, report on it. Like the MPAA and state AGs colluding to target Google, for example. But shit like, "Channing Tatum sent an email asking to be in Ghostbusters!" is the kind of thing that, while maybe interesting, offers nothing of value to the public.

I was under the impression that is what has been happening. It's not news outlets reporting on data that is publically available to everyone, just what has been leaked directly to them. Every article right now about the Sony leaks are nothing more than click bait for these outlets with next to no substance.

I can understand the idea of "fluff piece" as viewers do not want to see nothing but doom and gloom all of the time. It's actually something used in the industry to bring in and keep viewers because it's what they want to see. The big issue now with online outlets is there is never an off button or downtime between the news and a lack of regard between what is actual news and what comes off as nothing but fluff.

I agree with Sorkin and his stance because a lot of this stuff shouldn't be disseminated by those calling themselves journalists. There are tidbits that should be considered news-worthy, but it seems that posting salaries and personal information about employees now falls under that. Idk...maybe we don't care as a society because the NSA supposedly knows all this information anyway and don't care about privacy or it's because we all hate corporations so much, even if they are the ones driving the economy.

 

[Tobor]

Really? Are you a refugee from an alternate reality?

Yes, there are still refugees fighting the good fight, but the war is over.

 

[Mononoke]

Yeah I agree. As others have said, this shows a real lack of ethics. The media was quick to condemn the fappening but oh so gleeful at publishing all of this. Yes I get that hacking nude private photos from ones iCloud is much worse. But in terms of ethics, you have two cases of someone violating another persons privacy and illegally stealing this private data and making it public. Nudity aside, they are still publishing stolen data that violates ones privacy.

The media are hypocrites. If it wasn't socially and morally objectionable to post leaked nudes, I'm pretty sure this media would have done it. Anything for clicks. But because its socially frowned upon it was easier to condemn and act like they had ethics by refusing to post them.

But that line is drawn. This is text. It's just text. Who cares if it's private data stolen. Text is just text and not pictures. So it's okay to publish and cover private stolen data when it's just text.

I can step back and look at the two scenarios. One is personal photos on a personal account. The other is private emails at work. The private photos on your personal account is a lot worse in terms of the impact. It's also a violation of ones sexuality. It was despicable and so yeah I can understand measuring the two scenarios and saying one is worse.

But in terms of ethics from journalists and even is a society (our own moral compass), it's just strange how we are play with something terrible as long as it's less terrible. That we have that line drawn.