Aaron Sorkin offered a solution to writer’s block: “I like to walk around and listen to music, and I try to start an argument with myself by talking loudly. … Now you’re making me look crazy!”
But he adds that some of the best ideas come from there. “It’s one in 50 times, and I’ll take those odds any day,” he said.
Luck paid off as Sorkin worked on “The Social Network.” Sorkin won an Oscar for screenwriting and helped define Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the entire industry in the popular imagination.
Sixteen years later, Sorkin wonders about its unintended consequences.
“I remember talking to Jesse Eisenberg, who played Mark Zuckerberg on ‘The Social Network,’ and how uncomfortable he was with young men approaching him; as Mark said, they wanted him to sign business cards that said, ‘I’m the CEO, bitch,'” Sorkin said. “Jesse said, ‘Wait a minute, these people think Mark is a hero in this story, not a tragic hero.’ he said.
“Of course I’m responsible,” Sorkin said. “That wasn’t my intention.”
Perhaps that’s part of the reason Sorkin revisits Facebook and Zuckerberg on “The Social Reckoning” this Friday.
Jeremy Strong plays a grown-up Zuckerberg, still weird but much stronger. The film is inspired by the real-life story of Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen (played by Mikey Madison), who leaked thousands of internal documents to Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz (played by Jeremy Allen White) in 2021.
Haugen is still thinking about Facebook and Zuckerberg. “When I look at Mark, I see so many things about his experience of the world as a tragedy,” she said. “Here is a person who came to power when he was 19, surrounded by yes-saying men his entire adult life. He was able to immediately insulate himself from the 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 said Facebook is investigating how and why his content was shared. “In 2018, engagement was dropping, so they changed the algorithm,” he said. “This is so important because they knew they had done a lot of research showing that the things that are most likely to be reshared are anger traps, which are anything that makes you angry. That’s what they did, and it worked.”
We saw Sorkin (who also directs the film) bring his signature rapid-fire dialogue to life on set in Vancouver last July. “I get very anxious when there are no four walls,” he said. “I’ve written very few exterior scenes in my life. Mostly it’s people talking in rooms.”
When asked what he listened to while directing, Sorkin said, “You used the word ‘listen,’ and so do I. I’m very conscious of the music of language. My parents started taking me to plays from when I was very young. I loved the sound of the dialogue, too. It felt like music to me, just these great actors saying words hitting each other. I wanted to emulate that sound. And as I was writing, what a line of dialogue it was. ‘It sounds as important to me as it sounds as much as it means.’
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The film opens as Sorkin’s first screenplay, “A Few Good Men,” returns to Broadway. The film, which was made into a 1992 hit, examines another major institution that is similarly grappling with reality. His most famous line — “You can’t handle the truth” — also seems to apply directly to “The Social Reckoning.”
“I think the point is that you’re not acquisition “The truth in ‘The Social Reckoning,'” Sorkin said. “I think we can handle the truth, but… you know what? I will take this back. Maybe we can’t Take the truth and the reason why so many people believe things that are completely untrue is because it’s easier to believe a lie.
“For example, you can tell people until you’re blue in the face that the undocumented immigrant population commits fewer crimes per capita; they won’t hear it. They won’t hear it. Only “I heard that immigrants are the cause of their problems,” he said.
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, declined to comment on the film. It is repeatedly said that it tries to stop the spread of dangerous or harmful content.
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The film comes as Meta faces multibillion-dollar settlements and verdicts, allegations that its platforms harm the mental health of young users, and more cases are set to go to trial. Whistleblower Frances Haugen is concerned that Meta now has competition in the AI space. “There have been a lot of whistleblowers from Meta’s AI teams talking about the lack of security,” he said. “I would stop before rushing to give Mark the level of power he is trying to gain when it comes to AI.”
It is the power Zuckerberg already has that allows Aaron Sorkin to continue writing.
Asked what he would say to the Facebook co-founder if he met him face to face, Sorkin said, “You want to make the world a better place? Don’t make it up to get the truth. Don’t be indifferent to the truth. And he can do it.”
Click on the video player below to watch the trailer for “The Social Reckoning”:
FROM THE ARCHIVES: Facebook and “The Social Network” (YouTube Video)
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The story is produced by Dustin Stephens. Editor: Steven Tyler.