The difference between The Social Network and The Social Reckoning is David Fincher. There is no other way to say it. Fincher is an artist, and Aaron Sorkin is not. That doesn’t mean Sorkin isn’t talented. He is. But he’s infused with dogma and politics. Art has to take a backseat to THE MESSAGE. The Social Network is one of the best films ever made. It’s as tightly wound and exacting as it is beautiful, like a finely crafted Swiss watch. Of course, it couldn’t win Best Picture because it didn’t make people feel good about themselves.
From Deadline:
Whereas The Social Network was a drama looking at the origins of Facebook and the legal battles that followed, adapting Ben Mezrich’s book The Accidental Billionaires, The Social Reckoning is more of a thriller. Based on the events that gave rise to the Wall Street Journal’s shocking 2021 exposé “The Facebook Files,” this film tells the true story of how Frances Haugen (Madison), a young Facebook engineer, enlisted the help of Jeff Horwitz (White), a Wall Street Journalreporter, to go on a dangerous journey that ended up blowing the whistle on the social network’s most guarded secrets.
We then go to court and get a first look at Succession‘s Armstrong as Mark Zuckerberg — taking over a role made iconic by Jesse Eisenberg. This Zuckerberg is combative — calling himself a “professional defendant.”
He seems remorseless amid reports of Facebook’s “unprecedented” impacts on society — impacts not necessarily for the better — calling himself a “free speech absolutist” and “not the one who’s lying.”
Various characters we see then warn of the consequences of speaking out against Facebook, with one saying “the mafia” would be a better enemy to make.
You see, to the Left — aka the ruling class — the real crime is not enough censorship and guidance on what we all should think. The end result, per this class of people, is Trump and January 6th. That’s nowhere near the whole story, but it is their story, and they’re sticking to it.
It’s possible it’s not political at all and focuses only on the mental health aspect of the story:
I hope so. I guess we’ll see. But if I know the minds of Sorkin and others making this film, it will have to be about politics.
They won’t tell the other side of it, the unprecedented overreach by the government to censor speech. Why won’t they? Because they support it.
By the looks of it, the pole greasing is well underway, and the chorus will guide this thing through Oscar season like a fragile egg. It will push the “right” message and thus come to represent the “right” people. Will it be good? I don’t know. It won’t be as good as The Social Network, that’s for sure. Few films are. Fincher is making the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood sequel, which will be released the same year. I always thought Fincher and Sorkin made a great team because Fincher could reel in Sorkin’s indulgent tendencies. I have yet to see Sorkin emerge as a great director. He’s trying, but his mistake is in respecting his own written word. He needs someone to say, “murder your darlings.”
I do not have high hopes for The Social Reckoning, not since I heard it would be about January 6th and Trump, of course. Liberal Hollywood has not gotten over the public slapping them in the face not once but twice, and they believe just one last MESSAGE will finally make them change their minds. January 6th, but not the Summer that preceded it, where one video dropped into the churn and a false narrative whipped around the internet that said: “Jacob Blake was unarmed and there to break up a fight.” Kenosha burned to the ground before that narrative was ever corrected, which it finally was months later. Months later.
The internet has done strange things to our species. Look at us. A completely divided society, many of whom are algorithm junkies looking for the next fix. I walked away from Facebook in 2020, not because of the algorithms or Mark Zuckerberg, but because of the users who attacked me every single day and still would if I ever returned. The attacks are so vicious that members of my family often write me and offer condolences. They rule through fear, this self-righteous mob, and yet, I’m betting none of that will make it through.
I’m also betting The Social Reckoning, unlike The Social Network, will be partisan — nauseatingly so. How do we know this? Because of the person at the center of the film, the so-called whistleblower, and if you do not exist inside the bubble of the Left, you will roll your eyes.
The legacy media and Hollywood loved the Frances Haugen story:
Note the key phrases here that Facebook amplifies: Hate, misinformation, and political unrest. That’s basically the pitch by the Democrats to America about Trump and his base for ten years now. The real story here isn’t this. It’s how the most powerful political machine attempted to use social media to violate the First Amendment by policing thought and speech.
They lavished attention upon her, and she profiled in all of the major outlets, hailed as a hero. The Twitter Files, nada, zip. Nothing. That should tell you everything about The Social Reckoning. All it really amounts to is yet more propaganda for the Information State, a vast political leviathan that seeks total control over all of this — social media, commerce, AI.
And by the way, should the Democrats take back power after Trump, you will see the hammer come down on thought and speech right quick. There will be nothing holding them back. Probably most of you reading this will love that. I’ve never seen people with more of a desire to control thought and speech like today’s Left, ironically. But I’ll remind you anyway.
The best book, the one Hollywood will never adapt because they’re chicken shit, is Jacob Siegel’s The Information State.
If you really want to know what social media was used for, look no further than this book. It won’t lay things neatly at Trump’s feet, as these folks love to do. Instead, it tells an incredible story of the utopia all of us built back in 2008 as Barack Obama and the Democrats took over not just social media but all of American society as it migrated online.
That built an “inside,” not unlike Orwell’s 1984. That meant they could decide not just who got to be inside but also everything else: what kinds of movies got made, who wins awards, what the news should be. Everything outside of that falls into the category of “misinformation” or threats. The climax is how the Democrats used the FBI (while working under Trump) to coordinate the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop, censoring the New York Post. Both Facebook and Twitter took their marching orders from the FBI, which claimed it was “Russian disinformation,” which they knew it was not.
Once you convince the people that they are facing a generational threat (Trump), you can get away with even that kind of censorship. They even trotted out 50 experts to say the laptop was Russian disinformation. Everyone in the FBI knew it was not. They blocked what might have been an October surprise that handed the election to Trump. January 6th was merely the validation all of them needed to not just justify that but to step on the gas and justify even more, like raiding Mar-a-Lago, indicting Trump, convicting him of a felony, trying to throw him in jail and off the ballots.
Most people reading this will conclude, as Sam Harris has, that so what? We had to stop him by any means necessary.
I would say “define we.” In a democracy, “we” is not the high-status elites who control politics and culture. The “we” is “we the people.” Our elections decide. But here we had a clear-cut example of election interference that no one in the legacy media or in Hollywood will go near. That is the problem with the Social Reckoning. I can say this without having seen it or even seen the trailer. I know because I know Sorkin’s worldview because he is not unlike everyone else inside the insulated utopian diorama of today’s Hollywood. It’s depressing because we really do need brave and risky storytelling. We don’t have that now because all of Hollywood has merged with the Democratic Party.
If anyone in Hollywood has the balls to make The Information State into a long-form series or movie, then I will sit up and pay attention. They won’t, of course. You know it, I know it, and they know it.
Does it matter what I think? Not even a little bit. I was cast out of utopia long ago.
