Aaron Sorkin says the story of whistleblower Frances Haugen and journalist Jeff Horwitz gave him an idea for a new film after a long creative block. The Social Reckoning is due in theaters this month.
Sorkin told Reuters he had not planned to make another film about Facebook after The Social Network in 2010. The idea emerged after he met Haugen, a former company employee whose documents and testimony in 2021 raised concerns about the effects of Meta’s platforms on users’ health, safety and politics.
The new film follows Haugen’s decision to provide internal Facebook material to Horwitz, then a Wall Street Journal reporter. The documents helped shape the paper’s The Facebook Files series. The story centers on Haugen’s decision to go public and tell U.S. lawmakers why she believed Facebook’s algorithms promoted divisive material for profit.
Horwitz, now an investigative reporter at Reuters, was not involved in making the film. He discussed his reporting and relationship with Haugen with Sorkin, but said the director had warned him he would alter the timeline and some details. The film’s journalist character is a composite, and the story is fictionalized.
Sorkin said the main events were accurate, though he created dialogue and shaped the chronology for a cinematic narrative. Meta declined to comment. After Haugen testified, Facebook publicly disputed her account of how the company worked. Mark Zuckerberg called the claim that it deliberately promoted upsetting content for profit illogical.
In August, Meta agreed to pay up to $18 billion over the next decade under an agreement with U.S. states that restricts teenagers’ use of Facebook and Instagram. The company denied wrongdoing and said ensuring a safe and productive experience for teens was an imperative.