Frances Haugen hopes Mark Zuckerberg watches The Social Reckoning, the film dramatising her decision to expose information about Facebook’s inner workings.
Haugen, a former Facebook employee and whistleblower, worked with writer-director Aaron Sorkin on the project, while Oscar winner Mikey Madison plays her in the film.
Speaking about the company’s priorities, Haugen said: “The thing I saw at Facebook over and over again was there were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook. Facebook, over and over again, chose to optimize for its own interests, like making more money.”
Frances Haugen on The Social Reckoning
Haugen said she first met Sorkin several months after coming forward as a whistleblower. He had been exploring whether to create a companion piece to The Social Network, she said, and later returned to her after the publication of her memoir with a heavily annotated copy.
She told People she was “pleased” with the finished film and praised Sorkin’s approach to the subject.
“[Sorkin] asked a lot of really good questions. It was very clear he really cared about the space. He cared about democracy. He cared about the role of social media in society,” she said. “I’m very, very happy [with] how the movie turned out.”
Haugen also said she was glad the film was being released now, adding that she hoped it would remind audiences of “the remarkable amount of strength and a remarkable amount of power in even one small frontline person”.
Asked by Madison whether she thought Zuckerberg would watch the film, Haugen said she hoped he would see Jeremy Strong’s performance and reflect on his own choices.
“My hope is that he watches the movie and sees Jeremy Strong’s performance and asks himself, ‘Do I want to be living this life? Is this the legacy that I want?’ Because sometimes you can’t see it in the mirror until art reflects it,” she said.
Haugen added that she hoped Zuckerberg would consider whether he wanted to repeat the decisions made during his exploration of social media as he turned his attention to artificial intelligence.
