Latest / Mic Drop Comedy / Aaron Sorkin Revisits Mark Zuckerberg 16 Years Later In _The Social Reckoning_ _ The Daily Show

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Aaron Sorkin Revisits Mark Zuckerberg 16 Years Later In _The Social Reckoning_ _ The Daily Show · Mic Drop Comedy

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Please welcome Aaron Sorkin. Thank you for coming.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: I'm honored to talk with you. A Few Good Men, Moneyball, Newsroom,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Social Network. When do I get to talk to someone
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: that's had such a creation of all these things?
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: This is insane. It's awfully nice of you to say. Thanks.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: This film is not a sequel. But it is connected
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: to The Social Network, your film from 16 years ago.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Here's what it is.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: It's another movie about Facebook by the writer who wrote
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: The Social Network, and one of the characters from The
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: Social Network is in The Social Reckoning. It's as if
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: Henry Hill from Goodfellas showed up as a character in Casino.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Okay, got it. Does that help?
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: It does help. You could do, like, money balls. You
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: could do.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: A few more good men.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: Where were you in the marketing meeting when we needed you?
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: How do you re-approach writing the same character, but 16
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: years later?
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: This story, listen, the social network was about how Facebook
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: was invented. The social reckoning is about what it's become.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: And it's told through, this is a true story. It
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: centers a young woman named Frances Haugen. She was a
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: mid-level engineer at Facebook. She's played by Mikey Madison. She
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: enlists the help of a Wall Street Journal reporter who's
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: played by Jeremy Allen White. Together, they uncover these very
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: dark secrets that Facebook has been keeping from us. And
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: in there, Mark Zuckerberg is in there. He's played by
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: Jeremy Strong. He has a thunderous performance.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: I read that you actually worked with Mikey Madison with
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Francis' memoirs. to write the script. I mean, explain that.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Process a little bit to me. Yeah. Francis wrote a memoir.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: It's called The Power of One.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: And Jeff Horowitz, the reporter, also wrote a book called
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: Broken Code.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: I wasn't that interested.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: I told both actors that I wasn't that interested in
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: them doing a physical and vocal impersonation of those two characters,
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: that I really wanted them to play the characters in
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: the script. Nonetheless, both the real people have seen it
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: and seem to really like it a lot.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: It's a powerful film.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, rarely do I finish a film and then
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: go watch Francis' congressional hearing testimony.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: You know, that's a good thing if you're watching and
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: then wanting to learn and know more. It is.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: I just don't want to give the audience the impression
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: that they're going to learn anything.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: This is a fun.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: We do the same thing here.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: If you slip in a few.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Dick jokes, they forget that they learned something.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: People have been talking about the movie like it's important.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: That's the last thing that I want.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Speaking of important, you've talked about Mark Zuckerberg being an anti-hero.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: What does that mean exactly?
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: It's the difference between a villain and an antihero. An
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: antihero is a villain. What a villain wants is bad.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: They want the money. They want revenge. An antihero wants
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: something good. What Mark wants is to connect everybody in
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: the world.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: But the decisions he has made along the way have
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: been terrible and incomprehensible.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, what you do so well in your films
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: is you get me listening to and accepting... ideas that
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: I don't want to. And one of the things that
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: happened when I watched the film was I was empathizing
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: with some of what Mark Zuckerberg was saying. Facebook is
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: not the ref. I believe in free speech. How does
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: that play in with also censorship? I mean, that's kind
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: of what we're talking about here.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: There's an argument that lasts the length of the movie.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: And I think, listen, I think that I gave Mark
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: Zuckerberg the best version of his point of view. He
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: makes a pretty good argument. I disagree with it, but
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: he makes a pretty good argument. But I have to
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: say that My first movie, which was based on my
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: first play, was A Few Good Men.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: And at the end of A Few Good Men.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Which is also....
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: I wasn't fishing for that. That was really nice.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: Well, now that we've stopped, it's also coming back to Broadway.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: There is going to be a Broadway revival of A
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: Few Good Men. It starts previews Thursday night. at Lincoln
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: Center with a great cast. It opens October 29th.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: So Jack Nicholson's character has this big speech in the courtroom.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: I said, you can't handle the truth speech. And I
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: was a kid when I wrote that. And I just
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: remember standing behind someone in the theater at the end
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: of the speech, turned to the person he was with
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: and said.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: He's got a point. And that's always a good sign.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: You know, you can't handle the truth.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking of that with the Facebook algorithm, because we're
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: talking about asking Facebook to moderate political ads, and some
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: of which are lies. And Facebook's argument is this isn't
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: our job to police this. Yeah. Why, as humans, do
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: we want the simple explanation that sometimes is a lie?
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: It's easier to digest that, isn't it?
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Than the actual truth. Sure.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: And that's why it can be easy to get people
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: to believe lies. But there's a difference between an unpopular opinion,
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: which deserves First Amendment protection.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: And a lie which does not deserve First Amendment protection.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: So the example that's used in the movie... Yeah, I know.
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: Is Facebook will allow you to take out an ad
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: on Facebook. They'll allow you to target, say, predominantly black
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: zip codes, take out an ad on Facebook that says,
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: this year the election.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Will be held on Wednesday. Yeah. You shouldn't be allowed
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: to use it. Right. I agree with that.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Not that you needed me to say that I agree
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: with that, but I did.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: I liked hearing that.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: This particular time that you look at Facebook is very
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: interesting because they start to lose engagement or users, right?
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: And that's kind of what got us to this disaster zone.
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: They're losing engagement because their users are getting older and
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: because of competition from TikTok and things like that. And
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: so they need to do something, and they did something.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: They adjusted the algorithm to something that they call MSI,
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: stands for Meaningful Social Interactions, which sounds nice. Except that
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: what it is, I don't want to be coy, but
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: I don't want to give away too much in the movie.
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: What it is is prioritizing reshares over likes. 30 times
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: the power of a like.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Why is that a big deal?
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: Because they already knew that the things you're most likely
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: to reshare are anything that makes you angry.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: They had the data already.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: They know it's rage bait that you're going to reshare
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: the most. They don't care. It's going to increase engagement.
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: That's what's going to keep you on the platform the longest.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: Our reshares and the stuff you're going to reshare the
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: most are things that make you angry. So add that
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: to a news feed, which is powered by an algorithm,
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: which means you're getting the news you want and I'm
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: getting the news I want.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: You're getting the news that you want. And it means that.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: Somebody could be getting a daily dose of immigrants committing crimes,
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: for instance, and think that that's what the world has
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: turned into, are immigrants committing crimes.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to summarize some of that for my mom,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: who's watching at home. They are amplifying lies and things
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: that will give us an emotional reaction.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: More negative than positive. They're not amplifying the baby picture.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no, no.
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: They're saying that what they're amplifying, the baby picture. Yeah.
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: But what they're amplifying, and I mean amplifying, that's 30
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: times the power of a light, are things that are
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: rage bait, things that make you angry.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: Insane.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: There's a very powerful moment when.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: The character, Mikey's character, representing Francis, says to the journalist,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: you're mad because Facebook has taken your journalism jobs.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: And the journalist says, I'm mad that it's bad journalism.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: My bias isn't because tech has taken journalism jobs, it's
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: because you're doing them so badly.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: I should have asked you because you wrote the script.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: But I have to say, after one viewing, you know
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: a lot of it.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: I'm impressed.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about your writing because, my God, what
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: you've been able to do as a writer, and I was,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: you know, studying your process, and you're a physical writer.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: You walk and you move.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: I am.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: That's not what I.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Think of writing.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: I'm up and I'm down. I'm saying all the lines
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: out loud. I once broke my nose writing. LAUGHTER because
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: I had this.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: What?
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: Were you skiing and writing?
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: So you want an explanation for that? Yes, I do, yes,
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: I got an idea for what I thought was a
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: funny moment. This was the newsroom and I thought it
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: was a funny moment. I was gonna have a character
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: just kind of lunge at another character.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Two people were going to hold him back. It's a
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: comedy staple.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: It's a let me at him, let me at him moment.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: And I was very excited about this. And I was
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: acting it out.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: And I managed, while I was acting it out, traveled
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: into my bathroom and lunged forward.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: But there weren't the two people to hold me back.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: So right into the mirror.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: And if it had been a Scorsese film, he would
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: have said, all right, cut.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: Let's do that again. but this time just less blood. Right,
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: the nose is not a good one. Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: So I called that friend that you can call at
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: midnight when you've broken your nose writing. And asked her
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: to come over, just take a look at me. And
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: she came over, you know, my God, we have to
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: take you to the emergency room. And I said, yeah,
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: but read this, because I think it's really funny.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: So are you, you know, that resonated with me about
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: the physicality of writing, because when I write stand-up comedy,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: I find it's better when I'm moving and playing the
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: part a little bit. But is your laptop open and
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: you're also popping in and doing that? Or is it
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: you're keeping in your memory.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: It's a little of both. It's a desktop.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Desktop, thank you. My apologies. No, that's okay. I'll get
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: ahead of myself.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: It'll start writing, and I'm just excited, and I'm walking around,
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: and I'll realize it's been a while since I've typed anything.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: I should probably... memorialize this somehow.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: For years, when I lived in L.A., I would see
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: crazy people walking around screaming.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: I didn't know they were writing award-winning screenplays.
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: That's what they're doing. I, uh, during the West Wing,
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: the president of NBC, a messenger came with a package
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: for me from the president of NBC. It was a
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: headset meant to be paired with my car phone. And
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: it was a note that said, I was next to
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: you at a red light this morning. Please wear this
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: any time you're in your car by yourself.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: You look like a madman. That's hilarious.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: I'm curious, what would Aaron Sorkin, the writer, say to
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Aaron Sorkin, the director? Those aren't always the same people.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're directing a film knowing exactly.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: What the writer thought. Yes.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Is that helpful? Is that.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: You know, along the way, there were studio executives who'd say,
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: you know, listen... Aaron, the director, has to kick the
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: writer out of the room and that kind of thing.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: I promise you, what the director wants and what the
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: writer wants are exactly the same in those cases.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Right. I'm curious.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Do you think Facebook timed the release of Muse to
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: distract us.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: From this film?
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, for real, that did cross my mind. I mean,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: they are very deliberate, correct? No, they are.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: And sometimes for the good.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: You know, 16 years ago when The Social Network came out,
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: about two weeks before the movie opened, in order to
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: kind of mitigate the bad press that Mark knew was
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: coming his way. He donated $ 200 million to the Newark.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Public school system. So that's not bad. No, that's good.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's... It reminds me of the movie where
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: how do you get people to change, and it's either
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: money or pain. And he obviously felt that pain was coming.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: And I didn't realize this whole time, if I just
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: donated $ 200 million to the school system, I could increase
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: my public figure.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's great.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Last question for you. Thank you for chatting with us.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: This is an honor for me to talk with you.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Young people out there that are wanting to write, from
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: journalism to screenplays, it can feel so daunting. Maybe you
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: don't live in LA, maybe you don't live in New York,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: you're not aware that these can be professions for people.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: What's your advice or thoughts for young people that want
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: to write?
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: You know, read screenplays. If you want to write screenplays,
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: read screenplays. Go to the movies and try it.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: Do it.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Do it.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Read and try. Uh-huh. I love it. Okay. That's great.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Aaron, thank you so much for being here. Appreciate it
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: so much. The Social LinkedIn Movie Theater is nationwide October 9th.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Aaron Sorkin, everybody!