Aaron Sorkin’s movie The Social Reckoning is an arch-leftist’s paean to censorship

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REVIEW:

Aaron Sorkin, creator of The West Wing, apparently longs for the days when only those with whom he agrees could find a meaningful public forum.

Sorkin’s new movie, The Social Reckoning, makes a heavy-handed pitch for government and corporate regulation of online opinion, including political speech.

Audiences aren’t buying it.  Variety reports that “The Social Reckoning flops with $5.5 million debut.”

The movie follows WSJ reporter Jeff Horwitz and his source, Facebook manager Frances Haugen, as Horwitz investigates Facebook’s struggle with crafting an algorithm that maximizes the company’s growth and revenue while dealing with the platform’s impact on  society.

Horwitz’s Pulitzer Price series of exposés in The Journal uncovered some serious problems, such as the use of Facebook by drug and human traffickers, and its amplification of teens’ body image insecurity and its use by their bullies.

For Sorkin, these kinds of negatives provide him the rationale he needs to advocate clamping down on what he really cares about — politics.

The movie opens with a white woman standing by her disabled vehicle on the side of the road as she hysterically berates a black and Hispanic pair of police officers.  Later we are told that the woman was a solid leftist who left the fold and became a racist after being radicalized by Facebook’s algorithm.

The encounter comes across as unrealistic and overwrought.  Could such a thing have happened?  Who  knows? Billions of people interacting online enables trolls of all kinds.  Just check our comments section.

What actually happened was that people from Sorkin’s political team used these justifications to convince social media companies and search engines to go on a tear of shadow banning, censoring and deplatforming anyone with whom they disagreed.  Meanwhile Marxists, and Woke social theorists advocating radical overturning of societal norms and civil freedoms, were permitted to thrive.

CFACT and our allies experienced this full-on.

Global warming campaigners used social media to scare the public with scientifically dubious and outright false narratives.

When team warming posted that a storm, fire, drought, flood (you name it), was the “worst ever,” “the new normal,” “unprecedented,” and all your fault, CFACT would counter by posting the actual historical evidence.  The climate and energy Left were posting biased opinion and “solutions” that do not hold up to scrutiny.  We were posting historical records.  We were doing the math.  For the sin of countering propaganda with facts our posts were suppressed.

We were well on our way to Sorkin’s  ideal world where only side gets to speak.

Fortunately, Elon Musk bought Twitter and the absurdities became apparent.   Facebook encountered the embarrassment of  having its favored, yet false content debunked in real time on a  rival platform.  Mark Zuckerberg had no choice but to revert to his prior position that Facebook provides the platform, but does not choose the content.

This was smart business.  Facebook’s platform is brilliant.  Facebook’s bottomless scroll keeps people engaged with the platform, and its advertisers, for hours. When Facebook creates its own content, it’s mediocre, or did you spend last weekend romping through the metaverse?

Sorkin’s The West Wing and his original Facebook film The Social Network provided solid entertainment.  The Social Reckoning gives us staccato quips from monotone robots as they investigate staccato-quipping monotone corporate execs.  For 152 minutes you do not find yourself rooting for, or enjoying your time with anyone, not even the oft-brilliant Bill Burr.

We’ve never met Jeff Horwitz, but we’d like to think a talented reporter with a passion and knowledge of classic show tunes occasionally modulates his tone.

Social media enabled billions to choose for themselves what content to view.  It empowered the individual to think, speak and virally connect as never before.

Is it a problem that social media enables a flash mob to assemble without warning and loot a store or terrorize a neighborhood?  You bet it is.  Does this justify censorship of political opinion?  NO, IT DOES NOT.

The bedrock of American freedom is that the common man has the right to call the king a tyrant.  No doubt the king won’t like it.  The king may, or may not, actually be a tyrant.  Too bad.  When in doubt, when it is even close, when it is even somewhat less than close, always ‘err on the side of free expression.  Online or off.

Sorry, Aaaron.