The Social Reckoning isn’t as angry or as potent as a Facebook drama should be 13 October 2026 at 05:00

The Social Reckoning isn’t as angry or as potent as a Facebook drama should be

13 October 2026 at 05:00

Aaron Sorkin’s attempt to return to the success of The Social Network is a strangely dated and incomplete look at a world that needs a sharper eye

In retrospect, David Fincher’s 2010 film The Social Network was a landmark for a quiet, even counterintuitive reason. Before the film was released, some questioned whether Aaron Sorkin, a writer not exactly known for his mastery of, nevermind obsession with, the technical sphere, was the right man to tell the origin story of Facebook. And while Sorkin may well have converted Mark Zuckerberg into terms he could better understand – namely, a motormouthed wiseass who deep down wants to impress a smart, serious-minded girl – he and Fincher also made one of the first internet-centric movies to treat online life as a natural extension of IRL dynamics, rather than the otherworldly tech portal seen in so many 90s internet movies.

Granted, that’s the whole deal with Facebook: its viral spread of social networking, something so simple and addictive that aunts, grandpas and coworkers everywhere could understand it. Yet understanding its simultaneous extension and distortion of the real world wasn’t a given; four years later, for example, 2014’s Men, Women and Children was widely derided for taking an alarmist approach to the internet as a haven for adults seeking an affair, teenagers nursing porn addictions and fame-hungry strivers of all ages. The Social Network, on the other hand, is remarkably nonjudgmental about the basic mechanics of Facebook, rooting its nascent flaws in the human weaknesses that birthed it. In retrospect, the movie only feels outdated to the extent that it underestimates Zuckerberg’s grasping for power and the potential for grim carelessness that his online kingdom was built on.

Three Mark Zuckerbergs, Three Surprisingly Different Men 11 October 2026 at 05:01

Three Mark Zuckerbergs, Three Surprisingly Different Men

NYT: Technology

By: Alissa Wilkinson

11 October 2026 at 05:01

Jeremy Strong in “The Social Reckoning,” Jesse Eisenberg in “The Social Network” and the real Meta executive are all playing parts. But only one has changed his approach.

From top, Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeremy Strong.

The new Darth Vader: how tech execs became the film villains of our age 9 October 2026 at 07:05

The new Darth Vader: how tech execs became the film villains of our age

The Guardian

By: Dan Milmo Global technology editor

9 October 2026 at 07:05

Jeremy Strong’s portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Reckoning shows how public opinion has changed around billionaire CEOs since The Social Network’s release

When The Social Network came out, Mark Zuckerberg organised a staff viewing of a film he described as “fun”.

A group corporate outing to the sequel is unlikely.

What to Know About the Facebook Whistle-Blowing Case Depicted in ‘The Social Reckoning’ 9 October 2026 at 05:01

What to Know About the Facebook Whistle-Blowing Case Depicted in ‘The Social Reckoning’

NYT: Technology

By: Sarah Bahr

9 October 2026 at 05:01

Aaron Sorkin’s sort-of sequel to the 2010 “Social Network” dramatizes a whistle-blowing case at Facebook. Here’s what to know.

Jeremy Strong as Mark Zuckerberg in a scene from “The Social Reckoning.”

Margaret Hamilton, Whose Software Guided the Apollo Missions, Has Died 8 October 2026 at 09:09

Margaret Hamilton, Whose Software Guided the Apollo Missions, Has Died

NYT: Science

By: Trip Gabriel

8 October 2026 at 09:09

Margaret Hamilton, the first female programmer hired to work on the space project at M.I.T., was 90.

Margaret Hamilton with printed computer code in 1969.

The Social Reckoning review – Aaron Sorkin’s jittery sequel with all-new evil puppet Zuckerberg 7 October 2026 at 09:00

The Social Reckoning review – Aaron Sorkin’s jittery sequel with all-new evil puppet Zuckerberg

The Guardian

By: Peter Bradshaw

7 October 2026 at 09:00

Jeremy Strong’s slow-talking Facebook founder turns into a cameo, background to a thriller about a whistleblower that somehow never mentions Trump

Here is a film for all those people who solemnly deplore social media in conversation but haven’t quite got round to deleting their accounts. Sixteen years have gone by since The Social Network, written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher; this was the addictive, obsessive-compulsive movie about the birth of Facebook in Harvard’s macho-competitive cauldron of student sexism and nerdy self-pity, starring Jesse Eisenberg as the fast-talking, arrogant, not-necessarily-evil genius Mark Zuckerberg. Now Sorkin is back with a sequel of sorts, directing his own script – and now Zuckerberg is basically evil, but also weirdly slow talking, as if all the zinging, smart-alecky Sorkinesque dialogue energy of the first film has been siphoned away in early middle age and dispersed among the insurgents in the new cast.

Sorkin’s jittery, funny, syncopated style is unmistakable, as distinctive in its way as David Mamet, although he has one joke about “spatula” being a Yiddish word that he has borrowed from Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint. It is the story of how in 2021, Zuckerberg’s Facebook empire was challenged by courageous whistleblower-employee Frances Haugen and Wall Street Journal investigative reporter Jeff Horwitz, who were on a mission to tell the world how Zuckerberg, scared by falling revenue, changed the algorithm so that engagement was supercharged by rage bait and hate speech, malice and envy. Facebook, moreover, didn’t factcheck political ads, thus driving a huge, nationwide surge in extremist groups and teen bullying and becoming a major player in the Capitol riots. (Having said that, this film does not say aloud the word “Trump” and rather cravenly declines to specify Maga activity.)

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