Aaron Sorkin is set to write a film about the January 6 insurrection and the involvement of Facebook disinformation.
The Social Network screenwriter is returning to familiar territory for an as-yet-untitled look at how social media helped radicalise Donald Trump supporters who went onto storm the US Capitol in 2021.
“I blame Facebook for January 6,” he said on a special edition of The Town podcast, live from Washington DC. When asked to explain why, he responded: “You’re gonna need to buy a movie ticket.”
He then announced that he would be covering the subject in an upcoming project.
“Facebook has been, among other things, tuning its algorithm to promote the most divisive material possible,” he said. “Because that is what will increase engagement and because that is what will get you to, what they call inside the hallways of Facebook, the infinite scroll.”
When asked whose responsibility that was, he replied: “Mark Zuckerberg.”
He continued: “There is supposed to be a constant tension at Facebook between growth and integrity, there isn’t. It’s just growth so if Mark Zuckerberg wakes up tomorrow and realises that there is nothing you can buy for $120bn that you can’t buy for $119bn, so how about if I make a little less money, I will tune up integrity and I will tune down growth.”
Sorkin said he has yet to have a conversation with the Facebook CEO that isn’t “through the op-ed pages of the New York Times”.
The writer-director’s 2010 adaptation of Ben Mezrich’s The Accidental Billionaires looked at the origins of the site and the early controversy surrounding it. The script won Sorkin his first Oscar.
Sorkin was also asked about why he dropped his agent Maha Dakhil last year after she shared a post online that criticised Israel’s involvement in the ongoing conflict with Palestine which read: “You’re currently learning who supports genocide.”
“She posted something on Instagram that I just didn’t understand,” he said before adding: “There were people in my family who would have been hurt if I stayed.”
Last year saw Sorkin return to the stage with an adaptation of the musical Camelot, which received five Tony nominations but mixed reviews. His last film was 2021’s Being the Ricardos starring Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem.
