The roots of the Capitol incursion lie in the deep, dark depths of Facebook’s algorithms, according to screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, who is currently working on a script to bring his vision to the big screen.
Sorkin wrote “The Social Network,” a 2010 hit about the founding of Facebook.
His concepts for another look at the intersection of social media and democracy emerged during a recent April 26 episode of “The Town” podcast.
“Look, yeah, I’ll be writing about this,” Sorkin said.
“I blame Facebook for January 6,” he said, responding when asked to explain, “You’re going to need to buy a movie ticket.”
That led to a question about whether Sorkin was actually pulling a movie script together. “I’m trying,” came the answer.
Accordng to The Hollywood Reporter, sources later confirmed a screenplay is in the works that picks up themes from “The Social Network,” but its final direction was uncertain. Sorkin did make an earlier stab at a Jan. 6-themed movie, but the project was never fully developed.
Sorkin had more to say about Facebook than his project.
“Facebook has been, among other things, tuning its algorithm to promote the most divisive material possible,” he said, according to Politico.
Is a lack of censorship to blame for the Capitol incursion?
“Because that is what will increase engagement and because that is what will get you to, what they call inside the hallways of Facebook, the infinite scroll.”
When he was asked who to blame for that, he replied, “Mark Zuckerberg.”
“There’s supposed to be a constant tension at Facebook between growth and integrity. There isn’t. There’s just growth,” he said, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
“If Mark Zuckerberg woke up tomorrow morning and realized there is nothing you can buy for $120 billion that you can’t buy for $119 billion, ‘So how about if I make a little bit less money? I will tune up integrity and tune down growth.’ Yes, you can do that by switching a one to a zero.”
In 2021, Sorkin said he wanted to develop a movie about “the dark side” of Facebook and have David Fincher return to direct it.
“I think what has been going on with Facebook these last few years is a story very much worth telling, and there is a way to tell it as a follow-up to ‘The Social Network’, and that’s as much as I know,” he said then.
Fincher touched on the possibility of a Facebook-themed movie in an interview with the Guardian.
“Aaron and I have talked about it, but, um … that’s a can of worms,” he said.
