Facebook's Reckoning Arrives in "The Social Reckoning"

In 2010, I walked out of a movie theater after a screening of The Social Network. Directed by David Fincher (who received an Oscar nomination for this work), it was simply dubbed “The Facebook Movie” at the time, and audiences were unprepared for the sharp direction, captivating script, and powerhouse performances the cast would deliver. The film was also something people had not anticipated: a social commentary on how a new form of communication could potentially lead to a breakdown in how people socialized with each other. While movie entertainment isn’t quite a science (or easily predicted by an algorithm), the film appears to have aged remarkably well, while also hinting at something we hadn’t realized at the time: we had no idea what a Pandora’s box this website would open for the world.

Back when the movie came out, Facebook was just something that people used to chat with friends and family. These days, the site is a brand under a larger corporation named Meta, and Facebook is a place where political activists gather, politicians communicate with their constituents, and people share cat photos (because some things never change). The world has also become aware of how the company spreads information and the role algorithms play in determining how we receive it. This is likely what made revisiting Facebook so attractive to Aaron Sorkin, who wrote the screenplay for the first film (and won an Oscar for doing so) and now returns not only as the writer but as the director as well.

And yes, The Social Reckoning is the perfect title for a soft sequel because not only do companies need to reckon with what they have created, but we must reckon with how we have let these services influence our lives. This is the dilemma that faces Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison), who believes in Facebook's central mission of being used as a tool to bring people together but is noticing things about the website that make her very uncomfortable. She works on the Civic Integrity team at the company, and she is noticing a spike in hate groups being promoted by Facebook. Her problem: no one at Facebook seems interested in listening to her concerns, least of all Mark Zuckerberg (Jeremy Strong, replacing Jesse Eisenberg), who considers even a 1% drop in users enough to create a “bad quarter” for the shareholders.

It seems that, since resisting adding Mountain Dew ads to Facebook in the first film, Zuckerberg has become focused on monetizing his platform and pleasing the shareholders. So much so that he makes a decision that will radically change the site's future: a new point system for driving engagement. Under this system, different actions receive different point values, with sharing posts earning substantially more than simply liking them. This alarms the board as angry posts and hate speech get shared the most, and programmers are concerned that this will negatively affect people's emotions. For Zuckerberg, this is a small price to pay for driving up engagement and boosting the stock price. For Frances, this is no small thing, as she watches from a distance as a friend of hers from college becomes a radicalized right-winger on social media, a change that Frances suspects is the result of being fed false information on Facebook.

This leads her to become a whistleblower to journalist Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White), who has little interest in technology or social media itself so much as he is concerned about how badly information is being spread through them. As one can expect, the film covers some of this misinformation, including false claims about the COVID vaccine, how the virus spreads, and election denial. Needless to say, for those who believe such misinformation, The Social Reckoning may as well be liberal propaganda disguised as entertainment (judging by the reactions of right-wing podcasters). Of course, I should mention that Sorkin has claimed that when adapting real-life subjects, he believes his job is to be “subjective” rather than “objective.” So the man has an opinion, and we aren't watching a documentary, so those looking for a more nonfiction route, I recommend The Social Dilemma.

The more important question is: How does The Social Reckoning function as a movie? And the answer is that it functions largely well…but the film is definitely missing Fincher’s touch. Fincher’s direction was more radical and on-the-edge, with the film edited with the enthusiasm of a kid discovering editing tools for the first time. Sorkin, in contrast, made a more conventional drama, with long takes that are more focused on dialogue and key figures having long conversations. It is a more conventional movie in comparison, and one can’t help but feel a little disappointed in the result. On the other hand, this is more complicated material as well. Things like algorithms and points don’t always make sense to the average person. People know enough about terms like “The Wall” and “Friends List,” but how do you pitch a movie that describes a marketing process the average viewer can’t see?

For me, this makes The Social Reckoning’s objectives less about being hip and cool and more about being informative. Even Sorkin’s trademark “walk-and-talk” dialogue is scaled back in a very noticeable way compared to other films he has made. In the end, though, it works. While the absence of Fincher, Eisenberg, and composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross represents a huge loss, The Social Reckoning is still a compelling movie that highlights the growing misinformation epidemic in a way that most people can wrap their heads around. There is even a full-circle moment where Zuckerberg looks sorrowfully at a computer screen, defeated once again by his own creation, and we sense it won’t be the last time.