Aaron Sorkin offered his remedy for writer’s block: “I like to drive around and listen to music, and I try to start arguments with myself, talking out loud. … You’re making me sound crazy now!”
But, he adds, that’s where some of the best ideas come from. “One out of every 50 times, and I’ll take those odds any day,” he said.
The odds paid off when Sorkin was working on “The Social Network.” Sorkin won an Oscar for screenwriting, and helped define Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg – and an entire industry – in the popular imagination.
Sixteen years later, Sorkin wonders about the unintended consequences.
“I remember talking to Jesse Eisenberg, who played Mark Zuckerberg in ‘The Social Network,’ and how distressed he was that teenage boys were coming up to him; they wanted him to sign business cards that said, ‘I’m CEO, bitch,’ the way Mark had it,” said Sorkin. “Jesse was saying, ‘Wait a second, these people think Mark is a hero in this story and not a tragic hero.’
“Of course, I’m responsible,” Sorkin said. “It wasn’t my intention.”
And perhaps that’s one reason why Sorkin is revisiting Facebook and Zuckerberg in “The Social Reckoning,” out this Friday.
Jeremy Strong plays a grown-up Zuckerberg, still awkward but far more powerful. The film is inspired by the real-life story of Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen (portrayed by Mikey Madison), who in 2021 leaked thousands of internal documents to Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz (played by Jeremy Allen White).
Haugen is still reflecting on Facebook, and Zuckerberg. “When I look at Mark, I view a lot of things about his experience of the world as a tragedy,” she said. “Here’s a person who rose to power when he was 19 years old, surrounded by yes-men for his entire adult life. He’s been able to immediately isolate himself from consequences for 20 years.”
The consequences for the rest of us are depicted in “The Social Reckoning”: disinformation, extremism and division.
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Sorkin says Facebook studied how and why its content was shared. “In 2018, engagement was going down, so they tweaked the algorithm,” he said. “That is significant because they knew, they had done plenty of research showing that the things most likely to be reshared are anything that makes you angry – rage bait. That’s what they did, and it worked.”
On set in Vancouver this past July, we saw Sorkin (who’s also directing the film) bring his signature rapid-fire dialogue to life. “I get very nervous when there aren’t four walls,” he said. “I’ve written very few exterior scenes in my life. It is mostly people talking in rooms.”
Asked what he listens for when directing, Sorkin said, “Well, you used the word ‘listen,’ which is what I’m doing. I’m very conscious of the music of the language. My parents started taking me to see plays starting from when I was very little. And I loved the sound of dialogue. It sounded like music to me, just these great actors saying words that are crashing against each other. And I wanted to imitate that sound. And so, when I’m writing, what a line of dialogue sounds like is as important to me as what it means.”
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The movie opens just as Sorkin’s first script, “A Few Good Men,” returns to Broadway. Made into the 1992 hit film, it similarly examines another large institution wrestling with the truth. Its most famous line – “You can’t handle the truth” – also seems to directly apply to “The Social Reckoning.”
“I think the theme is you’re not getting the truth in ‘The Social Reckoning,'” said Sorkin. “I think that we can handle the truth, but … you know what? I’m going to take that back. Maybe we can’t handle the truth, and that the reason why so many people believe things that are flat-out untrue is that the lie is easier to believe.
“For instance, you can tell people ’til you’re blue in the face that the undocumented immigrant population commits fewer crimes per capita than citizens; they won’t hear that. They will only hear that immigrants are the cause of their problems,” he said.
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, declined to comment on the film. It’s repeatedly said it’s working to stop the spread of dangerous or harmful content.
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The film arrives as Meta faces billions of dollars in settlements and verdicts over claims its platforms harmed the mental health of young users, with more cases headed to trial. And with Meta now competing in AI, whistleblower Frances Haugen worries. “There have been many whistleblowers that have come out of Meta’s AI teams talking about the lack of safety,” she said. “I would pause before rushing into giving Mark the level of power that he’s trying to seize when it comes to AI.”
It’s the power Zuckerberg already wields that has kept Aaron Sorkin writing.
Asked what he would say to the Facebook co-founder if he had a moment with him face-to-face, Sorkin replied, “You want to make the world a better place? Don’t make the truth up for grabs. Don’t be indifferent to the truth. And he can do that.”
To watch a trailer for “The Social Reckoning” click on the video player below:
FROM THE ARCHIVES: Facebook and “The Social Network” (YouTube Video)
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Story produced by Dustin Stephens. Editor: Steven Tyler.
