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Ben O'Shea - The Social Reckoning - A Very Funny Script For Material That's Generally Horrifying · Lisa & Russell

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Another highly anticipated one today. This is a big one.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: This is a film that people had circled in the calendar,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: The Social Reckoning. And it's because everybody remembers the first movie,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: The Social Network, that came out in 2010. And you
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: think back to it and you go, what a cracker.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Directed by David Fincher. Jesse Eisenberg played Mark Zuckerberg. Who
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: did the music? The music was so good. That was
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Trent Reznor. Trent Reznor. Yeah, so good. He nominated for
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: an Oscar. Yeah, it really added to it. And screenwriter
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Aaron Sorkin won an Oscar for the best screenplay. He
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: created the West Wing genius. Genius dude. He's back as
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: a screenwriter, but also as director of the new film.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: So he's got his fingerprints all over this. And it's interesting.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: You go back to the first movie and, It was
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: sort of the origin story of Facebook, and it came
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: out at a time when We all pretty much thought
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Facebook was fairly harmless, right? For sure. It's infancy, really,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: wasn't it? It was. It had 600 million users at
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: that point. You know, we were adding our mates. We
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: were posting about what we had for breakfast on Facebook.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: The worst thing that happened on Facebook back in 2010
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: was maybe you looked up an ex-girlfriend from high school
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: to see what she looked like now, or an ex-boyfriend.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: That was probably the worst thing that happened on Facebook,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: and it happened a lot. Still happens. Still happens. Exactly, exactly.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: But we know now. Maybe some of the stuff that
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: was going on behind the scenes was not so innocent.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: So since 2010, we've seen Facebook be accused of election rigging,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: of causing a mental health global crisis. They have been
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: sued for billions of dollars. They've paid vast settlements. for
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: people who've taken class actions against them. So it's a
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: real stretch now to say that they're, you know, just
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: this innocent, harmless social media platform. I don't think you
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: can really say that anymore. So this film delves into
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: a series of explosive reports published in the Wall Street
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Journal in 2011 that was called the Facebook Files. And
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: it's the story of the journalist who wrote those stories
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: and the Facebook whistleblower who gave him 20,000 internal documents.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: And it really was over the course of about a
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: year They were talking to each other about, you know,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: how they were going to cover some of the issues
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: at Facebook because she didn't hate Facebook. She really, really
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: believed in their mission, what they were doing to connect people.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: But she just didn't like the harms that it was
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: causing and the fact that the company knew about a
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: lot of this stuff. And in particular, the thing that
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: I guess broke the straw that broke the camel's back
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: for her was that she had a friend, someone, you know,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: from a spin class that she went to. who was
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: a very left progressive person, like volunteered for left causes.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Within the space of a couple of years on Facebook,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: being what they called a hyper user, she was completely brainwashed, radicalized,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: and then was posting racist videos where she was abusing
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: black cops on Facebook. And this Facebook employee just couldn't
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: understand how it was possible that her friend had been radicalized.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: When she looked into it, turns out Facebook knew about it.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: And one of the many, many just breathtaking stats that
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: come up in this movie is that, you know, 64%
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: of Facebook users that end up in extremist groups on
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: the platform were directed there by Facebook's algorithm. They didn't
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: set out to join those groups. It's the algorithm. The algorithm, right?
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: And it comes at a time, very interesting time here
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: in Australia, where the government's legislating around algorithms. So it's very,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: very topical right now. It stars the great Jeremy Allen
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: White from The Bear. He's so hot in Hollywood right
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: now as this journalist. He is amazing because he doesn't
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: know anything, right? He's really not a tech reporter. Mikey Madison,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: who won an Oscar for Anora, she plays the whistleblower.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: She's hilarious as well. It's a very funny script. for
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: material that is generally pretty horrifying. And Jeremy Strong from Succession.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: You've got him as the Zuck. And, you know, like,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: is he as good as Jesse Eisenberg? Probably not, but
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: he brings something a bit different. I think he brings
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: that older... Yeah, he does. Zuckerberg vibe. And he's a
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: bit more menacing, right? Yes, yes. He's less sympathetic, which
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: I think is appropriate. He's a whole lot less innocent,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: isn't he? Well, yeah. By the time we get to
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: this story. Social network was he was practically a student himself. Yeah, exactly.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Now he's a ruthless businessman. He refused to come back
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: to play this role. Didn't want to. He didn't want
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: to do it. No. Oh, here we go. Bill Burr
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: as well. I love Bill Burr. How many Facebook likes?
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: How many just bring back MySpaces are you giving it?
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: I'm going to give this four. I thought it was
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: a great film. Go watch it in the cinema. Is
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: it a good date night movie? Yeah, I think so. Really? Yeah, yeah.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: And it's certainly a movie to give you something to
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: think about. And then maybe, you know, like if you're
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: on Facebook all the time, just maybe have a think
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: about what you're doing on there. Doesn't hurt to do that,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: does it? Yeah. Or Instagram, because they own that too. Yeah, well,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: that's true.