Sorkin takes another run at Facebook

Judging by Aaron Sorkin's The Social Reckoning, few the world's ill can't be linked to Facebook. An overstatement on my part to be sure, but Reckoning scowls at Facebook for abetting dangerous political extremism, wrecking young lives with cyberbullying, and allowing Jan. 6 rioters to post about their assault on the Capitol. Social Reckoning isn’t entirely wrong in its assertions, but Sorkin, working from his own screenplay, has drained much of the suspense from a story built around two characters, a Wall Street Journal reporter (Jeremy Allen White) and a Facebook whistleblower (Mikey Madison). Madison’s Frances Haugen began as a true-believing coding engineer intent on saving Facebook from abandoning its professed desire to become the world’s town square. By the time the movie opens, Facebook already has attained trillion-dollar status, and Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg (Jeremy Strong) has become an autocratic sphinx mired in capitalist tunnel vision. Much of the movie follows the…