Jeremy Strong plays Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg in Aaron Sorkin The social balance sheet.
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Léa Gallo/Sony Pictures Entertainment
A decade after telling the story of Facebook’s origin in The social networkAaron Sorkin returns to familiar territory by sounding the alarm about some of the collateral damage caused in recent years by a company that now has around three billion users worldwide.
In The social reportreleased in theaters this week, fictional Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg is squarely focused on growing the company, literally at all costs.
“There’s supposed to be some sort of tension between growth and security. He’s abandoned the security part, and it’s just about growth,” Sorkin said. Morning edition host A Martínez.
Aaron Sorkin, right, wrote and directed The social report16 years after his appearance at the Oscars as screenwriter of The social networkwhich tells the origin story of Facebook. Jeremy Strong, left, plays company co-founder Mark Zuckerberg in the latest film.
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Léa Gallo/Sony Pictures Entertainment
As a result, according to real-life whistleblower Frances Haugen, the social network allowed hate speech, violence and misinformation to spread at a much faster rate than it let on.
Haugen’s findings were initially revealed in 2021 through then-Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz’s investigative series The Facebook Files. Haugen also took the unusual step of making his information public around the same time. Following the ensuing outcry, Facebook’s parent company renamed itself Meta.
The tech giant also said it has reduced political content on Facebook feeds and given users more control over what they see on the platform. In response to requests from NPR, Meta declined to comment. The social reportwhich remains a work of biographical fiction.
Sorkin’s film is partly inspired by Horwitz’s book about the ordeal, Broken code. Haugen (played by Mickey Madison) evolves from passionate Facebook employee to bold whistleblower when she interacts with Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White).
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Horwitz found that in 2018, Facebook changed its News Feed algorithm so that sharing or replying to a post was worth up to 30 times more than a standard “like,” while comments were worth 15 times more and an emoji response was worth five times more.
“Facebook has done this knowing that what you’re most likely to re-share is anything that makes you angry – rage bait. So in addition to the enormous amount of misinformation they’re putting into the air, they’re also deliberately giving you content that they hope will make you angry,” Sorkin said.
By preparing The social network – which earned him the Oscar for best adapted screenplay – and The social reportSorkin created a dummy Facebook account to try it out himself.
Mikey Madison, right, plays Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen as Aaron Sorkin, left, The social report.
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Léa Gallo/Sony Pictures Entertainment
After the News Feed showed him a photo of a dachshund, Sorkin continued clicking on similar content, aware that he was training the algorithm to his liking.
“For the next two years, my whole feed was filled with photos of dachshunds, which I found harmless. So my Facebook page wasn’t dangerous at all. It was photos of cute dogs,” he said.
“But if, like 43% of adults (Facebook users), you use Facebook as a news source, you’re in big trouble.”
Jesse Eisenberg’s turn to play Zuckerberg in The social network was so visceral that he was often mistaken for the tech entrepreneur and fans would approach him in public quoting lines from the film.
Jeremy Allen White, left, plays Jeff Horwitz, then a reporter at the Wall Street Journal, author of a series of landmark investigative articles known as the Facebook Files, based on a massive leak of internal Facebook documents.
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Léa Gallo/Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sorkin naturally contacted him first to The social reportwhich Sorkin writes and directs. But Eisenberg turned down the role.
“It turns out Jesse Eisenberg doesn’t want to be confused with Mark Zuckerberg anymore. He doesn’t like the guy,” Sorkin said. On the night of the 2025 Academy Awards, he also told Jeremy Strong about the upcoming project, and Strong asked to be considered if Eisenberg turned down the role.
“So I had this chance, we replaced Joe DiMaggio with Mickey Mantle,” Sorkin said. “Anyone who has seen Jeremy’s work at this point, whether in Succession Or The apprenticehere on Broadway, you know he’s going to blow the doors down – best American actor under 50. »
Strong’s stiff, emotionless body language is a strange echo of Zuckerberg’s public appearances. “But it’s not about identity theft, it’s really about what’s going on behind his eyes,” Sorkin said.
Writer/director Aaron Sorkin, right, calls Jeremy Strong, right, “the best American actor under 50.”
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Léa Gallo/Sony Pictures Entertainment
This month, the career breakthrough of the writer-director Some good men is returning to Broadway for its first-ever revival. The courtroom drama was first staged in 1989 before Rob Reiner made it into a film released three years later.
But Sorkin insists his creative reservoir runs dry after big projects.
“I am the living embodiment of Sisyphus. This movie starts on October 9. And on October 10, I will be back at the foot of the mountain,” he said.
“I’ll bang my head against the wall and think: I might have written the last thing I’m ever going to write. I’ve used every word I know in every order I can think of… So I prepare myself for that terrible feeling.”
Margaux Bauerlein produced the broadcast version of this…
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