If you're following the Sony hack- Clooney petition

[Bernadine]

George Clooney tried to get major Hollywood players to sign a petition supporting Sony, and not a single person signed it.

link

I am so, so fascinated by this whole story.

[Wrath0fKuus]

Why does he want people to support Sony?

[Bernadine]

Dec 19, 2014 10:39:24 GMT -5 Wrath0fKuus said:

Why does he want people to support Sony?

Did you read it?  PB isn't letting me paste, but the petition is in support of Sony not submitting to the hacker's demands.

[Wrath0fKuus]

It just seems a little, I don't know, useless?

[Bernadine]

Dec 19, 2014 10:50:11 GMT -5 Wrath0fKuus said:

It just seems a little, I don't know, useless?

I agree that the petition itself wouldn't accomplish much, but then still, NO ONE signed it.  And not because THEY thought it was useless, but because they're scared.

[Bernadine]

Dec 19, 2014 10:59:32 GMT -5 kevin arnold said:

CLOONEY: Here’s the brilliant thing they did. You embarrass them first, so that no one gets on your side. After the Obama joke, no one was going to get on the side of Amy, and so suddenly, everyone ran for the hills. Look, I can’t make an excuse for that joke, it is what it is, a terrible mistake. Having said that, it was used as a weapon of fear, not only for everyone to disassociate themselves from Amy but also to feel the fear themselves. They know what they themselves have written in their emails, and they’re afraid.

CLOONEY: [...]The FBI guys said this could have happened to our government. That’s how good these guys were. It’s a serious moment in time that needs to be addressed seriously, as opposed to frivolously. That’s what is most important here.

Think about the incredible chilling effect here.  Nobody wants to defend Pascal and Lynton because of the racists jokes that were in the leaked emails.  Let's take it a step further and imagine if NK was able to pull of a government hack, and could dig up some incredibly embarrassing communication that could be used against one party or the other as a weapon of blackmail (I don't necessarily mean idiotic racsist jokes, I mean anything that could be incriminating).  Imagine the power NK could try to wield.  This is some scary stuff.

Exactly!  There is now a precedence that reaches so much further than the entertainment industry.

[cville]

Dec 19, 2014 10:59:32 GMT -5 kevin arnold said:

CLOONEY: Here’s the brilliant thing they did. You embarrass them first, so that no one gets on your side. After the Obama joke, no one was going to get on the side of Amy, and so suddenly, everyone ran for the hills. Look, I can’t make an excuse for that joke, it is what it is, a terrible mistake. Having said that, it was used as a weapon of fear, not only for everyone to disassociate themselves from Amy but also to feel the fear themselves. They know what they themselves have written in their emails, and they’re afraid.

CLOONEY: [...]The FBI guys said this could have happened to our government. That’s how good these guys were. It’s a serious moment in time that needs to be addressed seriously, as opposed to frivolously. That’s what is most important here.

Think about the incredible chilling effect here.  Nobody wants to defend Pascal and Lynton because of the racists jokes that were in the leaked emails.  Let's take it a step further and imagine if NK was able to pull off a government hack, and could dig up some incredibly embarrassing communication that could be used against one party or the other as a weapon of blackmail (I don't necessarily mean idiotic racsist jokes, I mean anything that could be incriminating).  Imagine the power NK could try to wield.  This is some scary stuff.

Right.  This is some scary ass shit.  So what if a petition won't actually have magical hacker-blocking powers.  It would at minimum let hackers know that people won't be cowed by them.  Not everything has to have immediate, measurable utility to be worthwhile.