The Oscar-winning writer of 'The Social Network' is working on a follow-up movie about Facebook that will explore the company's role in the 6 January 2021 assault on the US Capitol.
ADVERTISEMENTAre we getting a sequel (or a spiritual successor) to The Social Network?
Playwright and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, the talent behind The West Wing and The Newsroom, has confirmed that he is currently working on some kind of sequel to The Social Network - David Fincher’s acclaimed 2010 drama about the creation of Facebook that won Sorkin the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.
“I blame Facebook for January 6,” Sorkin said during a live recording of “The Town” podcast , about Trump supporters storming the US Capitol, and the involvement of Facebook disinformation. He did not elaborate further.
However, he did tease: “You’re going to need to buy a movie ticket.”
“Facebook has been, among other things, tuning its algorithm to promote the most divisive material possible. Because that is what will increase engagement,” he said. “That is what will get you to — what they call inside the hallways of Facebook — ‘the infinite scroll’ … There’s supposed to be a constant tension at Facebook between growth and integrity. There isn’t. It’s just growth.”
Sorkin added: “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 dollars, ‘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 honestly switching a one to a zero and a zero to a one.”
A Sorkin treatment of the 2021 insurrection? SIgn us up.
Although this isn’t the first time that the screenwriter has floated the idea of penning a The Social Network sequel. In 2021, he said that “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.”
Sorkin’s full appearance on “The Town” podcast can be found here.
