Aaron Sorkin is in the midst of writing a movie about the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol – and how Facebook is to blame. The Oscar-winning “The Social Network” writer broke the news while on The Ringer’s podcast, “The Town with Matthew Belloni.”
“I’ll be writing about this. I blame Facebook for January 6,” Sorkin said on the podcast, noting that he is “trying” to get this movie made. The screenwriter blamed Facebook algorithm for the increasingly more hostile political climate in the United States.
“Facebook has been, among other things, tuning its algorithm and tuning its algorithm to promote the most divisive material possible because that is what will increase engagement, that is what will get you to — as they call it inside the hallways of Facebook — the infinite scroll,” Sorkin said.
“But who’s responsibility is that?” Belloni asked.
“Mark Zuckerberg,” Sorkin shot back without missing a beat.
“The Social Network” writer noted that there’s “supposed to be” a tension within Facebook between growth and integrity.
“There isn’t. It’s just growth,” Sorkin said. “So if Mark Zuckerberg woke up tomorrow morning and realized that 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, he can honestly do that by switching a one to a zero and a zero to a one.”
The writer refused to talk more about the movie out of respect to his publicist. But if anyone were to write a project about how Facebook influenced this historic attack, it would be Sorkin. Directed by David Fincher, “The Social Network” took the story of Facebook’s founding and transformed it into one of the most revered movies of the 21st century. The film won three Oscars, including one for Best Adapted Screenplay.
