A number of celebrities such as Channing Tatum and George Clooney have had their personal emails to Sony Pictures staff leaked to the public recently. However, it is the Sony employees who have been most affected, especially co-chairman Amy Pascal. She had some very insulting remarks that she made about Angelina Jolie exposed to the media. Sony Pictures’ software was hacked just before Thanksgiving and it is widely believed that this cyber-attack was orchestrated by North Korean state-sponsored hackers even though the North Korean government vehemently denies any involvement.
This act is considered by many to be in retaliation for the upcoming release of the Sony Pictures movie “The Interview,” which has since been stalled due to the controversy. In this comedy Seth Rogan and James Franco, who were also victims of the Sony hack, play two tabloid reporters who are hired by the CIA to assassinate Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader. However, the film mocks the dictator by showing him to be a big softie who is a dog lover and an avid fan of Katy Perry’s music. This challenges the masculine image that the North Korean government displays internationally through their video footage of their leader preparing his soldiers for battle. He uses the fact that he possesses nuclear weapons as a means of expressing his superiority over other nations. This has had devastating consequences for his reputation both at home and abroad.
While it is obvious that businesses should learn from this unfortunate event and make sure to upgrade their computer security systems, lessons should also be learned regarding the content of business emails. Many people forget that emails can be used as written proof that something happened especially in circumstances where staff are not communicating with each other or customers in a friendly and professional manner. It is important to realize that not everyone will share your sense of humor so you need to be careful in how you describe other work colleagues or work situations. In emails, like all written texts, tones can seem harsher than they actually are and a meaningless joke to you may cause others insult or get lost in translation. Even in our personal emails outside of work we should always aim to be as polite as possible. After all, we never know when we could be the next target of hackers!
