Did you know that the Sony hack, amongst other things, caused scores of British children to hear some salty language on TV? That's what the UK's telecommunications authority believes after the company showed the adults-only version of a classic film in the early afternoon. Sony-owned channel Movie Mix showed the Paul Newman courtroom drama The Verdict on December 14th, and in one scene, characters drop f-bombs as if they were candy wrappers. The excuse for such flagrant sweariness was that when Sony's servers were hacked, a nefarious type had "erased" the safe-for-daytime-viewing version of the flick, with the unedited version taking its place.
As far as excuses go, it's a bit like using the death of a relative you didn't know you had to justify not doing your homework a year after the event took place. That's mostly because the film was meant to be checked by a human operator before broadcast, who clearly omitted to make sure the characters said "don't duck with this case" instead of the other thing. Sony, for its part, apologized for the error and said that procedures had been tightened up ensure it wouldn't happen again. The company managed to get away with a stern warning, but heavier penalties could be brought to bear should it, for instance, arrange a 3pm screening of The Wolf of Wall Street during the school holidays. Of course, we do have to ask: How many tweens are watching 1982 courtroom dramas when they could be vegging out in front of Teletubbies or, you know, playing with their Amiibos?
