Back in 2010, ‘The Social Network’ –– directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin to Oscar-winning effect –– charted the difficult early 2000s birth of the social media behemoth Facebook and its smart, but troubled co-founder Mark Zuckerberg (played there by Jesse Eisenberg).
Now Sorkin is back, this time as both screenwriter and director, for ‘The Social Reckoning,’ (in theaters now) which spins the clock ahead to 2019, 2020 and 2021 to chart the impact of the service on the wider culture. Spoiler alert: not great!
But while Zuckerberg is still part of the story (now brought to screens in the shape of Jeremy Strong, ‘The Apprentice‘), the focus here is Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison, ‘Anora’), a Facebook whistleblower who gave 22,000 images of internal company documents to Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White, ‘The Bear’) an investigative journalist at The Wall Street Journal.
Related Article: Movie Review: ‘The Social Reckoning’
Did Frances Haugen really turn whistleblower because of a friend who was radicalized?
Yes! The movie opens with a drunk white girl who films and insults cops who stopped to help her broken-down car on the side of the road, and is shown to be part of far-right groups on Facebook after frustration with her democrat leanings and leaders.
In reality, the friend was male, named Jonah, and didn’t actually make videos. Here’s what Haugen told the London Times.
“My friend never televised his own descent down the rabbit hole. But the scene is meant to evoke a similar disconnection from our consensus reality.”
Was the real Jeff Horwitz a tech dummy?
While Horwitz seems happy with his portrayal in the film, and his articles form part of the basis for the movie (he attended the premiere), what we see on film is much more Aaron Sorkin’s invention (cue Frank Capra and classic musical obsessions!) than the real journalist, beyond the basics of him meeting with Haugen, getting the documents and publishing.
He, for example, was much more established in San Francisco than the hotel-dwelling man we meet in the movie, married, and most of the meetings took place in the spacious garden his wife designed. But his first meeting with Haugen was on a hiking trail as portrayed.
Is Mark Zuckerberg as cold and robotic as portrayed?
There’s no denying that the real Zuck (the fifth richest man in the world, let’s not forget) carries plenty of the awkwardness that seems inherent in most billionaires). He’d probably argue that Strong’s portrayal is more caricature than character, but Haugen told the Times that plenty of the conversions about changes have their basis in fact:
“If you read through the court covering the kids cases , people are regularly very matter-of-fact that there is no point in launching various kids-safety fixes because hit to of minutes on the platform per month/engagement/ad revenue is allowed by him, even when it’s as little as 1 per cent.”
Was there a real person named Charlie who challenges Zuckerberg’s assumptions?
In the movie, when Zuckerberg is practicing for Senate hearings, he’s advised –– and occasionally shouted at –– by a former acquaintance he’s none too happy to see named Charlie (played by comedian Bill Burr), who soured their relationship by writing a critical newspaper op-ed.
He’s most likely a composite for storytelling sake, drawn from the likes of Roger McNamee, an early investor who wrote ‘Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe,’ (and who became a consultant on the film) and Chris Hughes a co-founder from the early days of Facebook, who wrote a New York Times op-ed in 2019 calling for the company to be broken up. Hughes, in his article, portrayed Zuckerberg as “a good, kind person”, whose relentless focus on growth “led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks”.
List of Aaron Sorkin Movies and TV Shows:
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