published October 10, 2026
Working the story behind the Facebook Files like an entertaining spy thriller, Aaron Sorkin creates a movie worth sharing.
The Social Reckoning could’ve been a really angry movie. Based on investigative reporting by Wall Street Journal’s Jeff Horwitz, the time period covers 2019-2022 and topics include Facebook’s gaming the system to keep “users” (not “people,” but the much colder, technical term of “users”) on the site or in the app for longer periods of time; Facebook algorithms recommending hate groups to an alarming number of users; the disturbing and rapid proliferation of misinformation across Facebook; encroachment on freedom of speech; threats to democracy; polarization; bullying of teenage girls on Facebook-owned Instagram via “hate pages;” the pandemic; using the general public’s gullibility as a strategic advantage; and the Capitol riots in the wake of Joe Biden’s presidential election win.
Heavy stuff. And a lot seems to have already been forgotten by the billions of people on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp who have driven what is now Meta’s market valuation from $1 trillion “back then” to $1.85 trillion today.
While Meta agreed to an $18 billion “addictive features” settlement in August 2026 (and it’s still moving through various state approvals), it’s less than 1% of the company’s worth. A pittance with no admission of guilt and superficial software enhancements that do nothing to change the actual guts of the tech. And most adult “users” seem to do nothing to help themselves break free.
Even if Zach Cregger or Curry Barker turned this material into the most terrifying story ever told in any medium through the ages, people would still hop on Meta platforms to share their like or dislike. This story is more akin to The Odyssey and Digger. A new dawn will rise and past mistakes will be forgotten while the world sits back and watches it all fall apart.
Writer-director Sorkin does an incredible job of keeping things moving and grounding the story in a sense of humor that comes largely from some great back-and-forth dialogue between Jeff (Jeremy Allen White) and Facebook data scientist Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison). They make for a great movie duo with some terrific chemistry that fuels the relationship between a political reporter in need of some tech savvy and a data scientist in need of a bullhorn.
Maybe the name Frances Haugen rings a bell. She blew the whistle on Facebook’s practices and policies, unleashing a trove of thousands of internal company documents to the public. And Jeff, for his part, published a series of 17 articles that would go on to win him the Pulitzer Prize.
Madison (the Oscar-winning star of Anora) is perfect as Frances, likely channeling her own “painfully shy” youth to inform her portrayal of a young woman whose life revolves around data rather than dating and who almost perpetually wears legwarmers and gloves as an effect of her coeliac disease. When Madison’s on the screen, the movie is all the more watchable.
Pair her with White (FX’s The Bear series) and, while the two aren’t Bogart and Bacall or Douglas and Turner (theirs is not a romantic relationship by any means), they create their own movie magic and a special dynamic that humanizes both characters of dramatically different backgrounds and experiences.
Way back in 2010, Sorkin wrote the screenplay for The Social Network, for which he won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar (based on the book The Accidental Billionaires). The movie was a decent drama directed by David Fincher, one that starred Jesse Eisenberg as a college-age Mark Zuckerberg who was building a crude site called Facemash that would go on to conquer the world. But even back then Zuck’s efforts were mired in controversy. Eisenberg gained an Oscar nomination for his performance.
Sorkin has rather humorously addressed Eisenberg’s refusal to return to the role for this follow-up, calling it “infuriating” the man is simply not motivated by money. (Plus the fact Eisenberg has on numerous occasions stated he’s alarmed by people on the streets still associating him with the role to this day.)
Therein comes Social Reckoning ’s weak spot. Stepping in as Zuckerberg is Jeremy Strong (Kendall Roy on the HBO series Succession). He nails the voice, but the rest of his performance is stiff as a nail. Unless there’s deep fakery afoot, even the most recent footage of the real Mark Zuckerberg indicates he’s still a human being and moves as such. Awkward? Sure. His is certainly not the epitome of a polished stage presence. But Strong’s performance is one of a man who has already achieved singularity. His motions are robotic. His aura is of Spock, or at least an emotionally challenged man who went from a dodgy college geek to a stone-cold genius mathematician who’s lost his humanity.
Thankfully, Strong doesn’t have all that much screen time and he doesn’t make his first appearance until 30 minutes into the movie. By then, Madison and White are well on their way to cinematic superlatives.
As the movie gets into the weeds of the technicalities of Facebook’s operations, data analysis and – effectively – user manipulation, sentiment analysis enters the discussion. Frances notes the program isn’t sophisticated enough to understand sarcasm. Yet.
It’s not called out as such, but that program is artificial intelligence. AI.
From there, a lot of dialogue involves MSI (Meaningful Social Interactions) and internal Facebook operations such as the Civil Integrity Team. There’s chatter of putting public interest ahead of business interests, but the thought of reducing user time and thereby reducing revenue can’t be taken seriously.
There’s a lot of the high-minded altruism that’s talked about in the hallways and backrooms of Facebook. It all sounds a lot like Sam Altman (OpenAI CEO) and Dario Amodei (Anthropic CEO), who collectively and separately at times come across as comical with their alternating takes, shuffling between the end of white-collar work and the end of the world followed by the occasional 180 and a mea culpa and then back to upselling the benefits of their platforms. It’s ridiculous. They’re ridiculous.
While Luca Guadagnino is making waves with his forthcoming OpenAI-focused movie, Artificial, his track record is scattershot. It’d be interesting to see where Sorkin could take those colorful characters.
It all comes down to how grounded the filmmakers keep things and where they hold the focus. It’s been a struggle lately, particularly with movies like Tony and Primetime playing fast and loose with facts and interpretations of lives.
Here, Sorkin seems to stay true to the events or at least their spirit, Strong’s weak performance set aside. That’s partially thanks to this all being relatively recent and Haugen’s own involvement as a consultant, with credit being given to her book (The Power of One) and Horwitz’s (Broken Code) as reference material.
The end title cards, providing some follow-up data, are both humorous and ominous.
On the light side, semi-luddite Horwitz went on to learn how to use his car navigation system. Cool. Good for him. (But, how is it he starts out as a reporter on the political beat, not tech, and yet his book gives him the title of Tech Reporter?)
On the OMG side, it’s noted Facebook no longer fact-checks anything – and 43% of adults get their news from Facebook.
That’s terrifying. Particularly given the gullibility of the general public was previously called out as either an issue or a benefit, depending on your point of view.
Still, in a fitting Hollywood ending, it’s Frances who gets to finally make a gesture she had questioned earlier in the movie during a televised basketball game. As she exists the hearings, she makes a triumphant fist pump.
She brought the pain.
But the world is still waiting for the gain.
Editor’s note: The author has jokingly told people he “sucks at Facebook” as a semi-apology for not being more active on the platform. But it’ misleading. It’s not that he doesn’t know how it works, it’s that he knows too well how it works. He truly doesn’t want to be on it aside from meeting the bare necessities of modern social conventions. Those protocols mask a broken system that is totally artificial and superficial. It’s a problematic platform that’s only getting worse.