Why The Social Reckoning never quotes Donald Trump
Aaron Sorkin reveals why he intentionally left the name of the American President out of his new film on Facebook.
Donald Trump is at the heart of debates about online disinformation, but his name will never be mentioned in The Social Reckoning.
A deliberate choice by Aaron Sorkin, who returns to the world of The Social Network to tell the story behind the scenes of Facebook and the consequences of its operation on American society.
In an interview given to Vanity Fairthe screenwriter explains that his film does not seek to pit Democrats and Republicans against each other, but to understand how social networks contribute to the polarization of the country:
“The film is about Facebook’s role in the rise of divisions, extremism and hyperpartisanship in the country. It’s not a question of Democratic or Republican camp, although, obviously, it will be perceived as such…“
No one asked him to remove any explicit reference to Donald Trump. Aaron Sorkin made this decision himself, going so far as to promise Tom Rothman, the boss of Sony Pictures, that the film would not show any signage bearing the image of Trump or the slogan “Make America Great Again”. The goal was not to reduce this story to a political confrontation, but to focus on Facebook’s responsibility in the spread of extreme speech and disinformation.
Presented as an extension of Social Network from 2010, The Social Reckoning follows whistleblower Frances Haugen, played by Mikey Madison, and journalist Jeff Horwitz, played by Jeremy Allen White. Their investigation gave rise to Facebook Filesa series of articles published by the Wall Street Journal in 2021, which revealed in particular the harmful effects of the platform on adolescents and its role in the circulation of false information.
Sorkin also spoke about the film’s reshoots, organized after the release of its trailer. He denies they were motivated by mixed public reactions. “We weren’t fixing anything.”he says. Tom Rothman would have simply offered to reshoot a few scenes. The filmmaker took advantage of three days to rewrite two sequences and add a new one, with the idea of improving an already completed film, and not of repairing a problem.
But the most significant changes have come from lawyers. Sony brought in an outside firm specifically for the project, which resulted in several changes to the script. In an initially planned scene, a senior Facebook executive called Frances Haugen a “slut”. Lawyers demanded that the line be removed unless Sorkin could prove that a company executive had actually used the term.
Another notable change: the character played by Bill Burr could not directly bear the name of Roger McNamee, historic Facebook investor. Although the latter agreed to participate in the project, the legal risks linked to the representation of his interactions with Mark Zuckerberg led the production to modify the identity of the character, now presented as simply inspired by McNamee.
The Social Reckoning is currently in theaters.
