There’s a saying that you should never see how the sausage is made. In the new film The Social Reckoning it shows the tech version of this saying and exposes the inner machinations of social media giant Facebook in its efforts to keep people engaged on its platform.
Artfully written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, The Social Reckoning tells the true story of Facebook whistleblower Francis Haugan and Wall Street Journal investigative reporter Jeff Horwitz.
The resulting series of stories and investigations became known as The Facebook Files.
Sorkin has already plumbed the social media landscape with his earlier film The Social Network which focused on the formation of Facebook from a Harvard dorm room and its subsequent legal challenges.
This time it’s all about what went down between 2020 and 2021 as the world faced the COVID pandemic and while Facebook was frantically trying to supercharge its algorithm to improve engagement to avoid a substantial loss of revenue.
The subject is topical given the Australian social media ban and talk of creating more restrictions around the algorithm to avoid adverse effects for users.
In the film, it alarmingly exposes Facebook’s approach, which was to create more engagement which ends up stoking the flames of hate speech and anger and all with the goal of keeping people on the platform even longer.
Francis Haugan, played by Academy Award-winning actress Mikey Madison, is a data scientist employed at Facebook in the Civic Integrity Team who responds to a message from Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz, play capably by Jeremy Allen White of “The Bear” fame, who is digging for information around how Facebook is allegedly manipulating data and comments.
Haugen has her own concerns about the data she has found but she is unable to express them to her superiors and is basically told to keep her head down and toe the line.
She has skin in the game after seeing a video shared by former level-headed colleague who has been radicalised by platform’s extreme algorithm. This episode is dramatized in the opening scene of the film.
Jeremy Strong plays Mark Zuckerberg with remarkable accuracy both in terms of his look and mannerisms.
His portrayal shows Zuckerberg as someone who wants to be efficient and get straight to the point on any discussion or presentation while advocating for freedom of speech on the platform.
His foil in The Social Reckoning is played by Bill Burr – a former investor named Charlie who is in Zuckerberg’s ear during a practise session ahead of a Senate hearing about his and the platform’s responsibilities and ethics.
“You’re like a crossing guard standing out front of a school and you’re not doing anything with your arms so the cars are just ploughing down the children – because it’s a democracy,” Charlie tells Zuckerberg.
Charlie’s other gripe is that Facebook doesn’t fact-check political ads.
All this comes together in an absorbing Aaron Sorkin screenplay, which features his trademark razor-sharp rat-a-tat-tat dialogue.
Sorkin has turned a story about leaked documents and statistics into an entertaining and human story.
The story’s timeline also happens to coincide with the January 6 2021 attack at the US Capitol which resulted in the removal of a video posted by Donald Trump.
The Social Reckoning is a compelling portrayal of the power and influence of social media and the modern challenges society is facing.
It lays bare Facebook’s shortcomings, blinkered views and lack of action over misinformation and false advertising.
Meanwhile Facebook and Instagram (now part of the same Meta company) will keep honing its algorithm to keep us engaged on the platforms for as long as possible and harvest our data at the same time.
The Social Reckoning opens in theatres today.
