Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning Returns to Facebook With a Darker Zuckerberg

Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning, a sequel of sorts to The Social Network, opens in American theaters on Friday, revisiting Facebook and its founder at a moment when public attitudes toward big technology companies have turned sharply more skeptical.

Sorkin, who won an Oscar for writing the 2010 film about Facebook’s creation, wrote and directed the new movie. It is inspired by the story of Frances Haugen, the former Facebook employee who in 2021 provided thousands of internal documents to Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz. Mikey Madison plays Haugen, Jeremy Allen White plays Horwitz and Jeremy Strong plays an older, far more powerful Mark Zuckerberg, CBS News and the Guardian reported. The film centers on claims, as CBS News described them, that the company adjusted its algorithm in 2018, as engagement fell, in ways that rewarded content most likely to make users angry.

Sorkin told CBS Sunday Morning that part of his motivation was regret over how The Social Network was received. He recalled Jesse Eisenberg, who played Zuckerberg in the first film, being distressed that young fans treated the character as a hero rather than a tragic one, and said he accepted responsibility for that even though it was not his intention. The new film’s theme, he said, is that audiences are not getting the truth, and that lies often spread because they are easier to believe.

Critics have noted how differently the two films treat their subject. In a Guardian review, Peter Bradshaw found the new movie entertaining and full of Sorkin’s rapid-fire dialogue but said Zuckerberg is reduced almost to a cameo, a stiff figure surrounded only by employees, and that some scenes ring false. A separate Guardian analysis argued that Strong’s colder portrayal reflects how far opinion has moved since 2010, when Zuckerberg arranged a staff screening of The Social Network, and placed the film alongside a coming drama about OpenAI and a documentary about Elon Musk as part of a wave of movies casting technology executives as villains.

Haugen, interviewed by CBS, described Zuckerberg’s experience as a kind of tragedy, saying he rose to power at 19 and has been insulated from consequences ever since, and she urged caution about his ambitions in artificial intelligence.

Meta declined to comment on the film to CBS. The company has repeatedly said it works to stop the spread of harmful content and has improved safety on its platforms, and defenders of the industry argue that dramatizations compress complex decisions into tidy morality tales. The movie arrives as Meta faces billions of dollars in settlements and verdicts over claims that its platforms harmed young users.

The release coincides with a Broadway revival of A Few Good Men, Sorkin’s first script, CBS News reported, whose most famous line, about not being able to handle the truth, he said applies to the new film too.