The Social Reckoning

Our scene begins as a cop and his partner are routinely pulling over what they suspect is an impaired driver. At first the stop seems to be going okay, until the male officer asks the lady driving to step out of her car. She then begins causing a scene—at first refusing to step out. A little later though, after she does finally get out, she whips out her phone like a lot of her generation does, and records herself as “the victim of police brutality and the victim of an illegal stop by the police.” She then begins debasing the officers with severely racist remarks and even fakes being assaulted by a police officer. Of course, the video goes viral. But there’s one person in particular who’s opinion of the video might matter a little more…

Meet Frances (Mikey Madison), she works for Facebook. More specifically her role is to ensure that Facebook continues to progressively apply its algorithm when it comes to flagging and monitoring potentially offensive content. In her role she discovers something very off putting: certain posts on Facebook, like the one of, yes, her cousin making a scene with the police, being promoted and shared more by Facebook by up to 30x the amount a normal like or normal share would get.

Sadly, Frances’ observations and suspicions fall on deaf ears, especially with her fellow colleagues at Facebook. One even warns her not to go down this road. Upon further discovery, research has begun to show that because Facebook shares videos that are extremely violent, explicit and the like, many of the more impressionable users, older teens and young adults, end up being recruited by hate groups and domestic terrorist organizations flagged by the FBI. Since no one at Facebook wants to hear about it, she decides to blow the whistle on Facebook and present her findings to a journalist at the Wall Street Journal, Adam Horowitz (played by an impressive Jeremy Allen White).

Together, Adam and Frances are going to do whatever it takes to get Facebook to change, no matter the risk.

A follow up, of sorts, to “The Social Network” which was considered a massive success due to heavy impacts on corporate greed and what it does to personal relationships. Based on the actual 2021 Facebook Leaks, “Social Reckoning” tries to preach the notion that when a business becomes too powerful, like Facebook, it makes its own rules and sometimes this includes who and what becomes censored.

I suppose this would be a relatively agreeable view on corporations. But then I stopped, about halfway through the film, and asked myself, “What and who is the primary voice that is trying to convey this notion? Are they a reliable source of information, are they unbiased?”

The answer to that second question is “No they aren’t unbiased.” There’s an old saying, “Opinions are like noses. Everyone has them.” Perhaps. If this is true then “The Social Reckoning” hasn’t the biggest nose of them all. Produced and directed by Aaron Sorkin, one of the most extreme far left liberal filmmakers out there (following Michael Moore of course), this film has his name all over it, but not for the best reasons.

The problem with “The Social Reckoning” isn’t just who’s sending the message though; it’s also what’s being conveyed. In trying to address multiple subsections of this particular issue (censorship and blacklisting in social media), the film becomes confusing, unorganized and draining. The film tries to address censorship, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, corporate culture, etc. At the end I was left scratching my head as I pondered how such an extremely Woke film could be so thick and at the same time confusing (by the way, if you don’t understand computer analytics and programming, I promise you are GOING to get lost—guaranteed.

I could forgive some of this if it wasn’t the actual depiction of Mark Zuckerberg. While Jeremy Strong is an incredible likeness, in both voice and looks, to the real Mark Zuckerberg, Zuckerberg is made to look like the victim in the story and that Frances is the true antagonist. ***SPOILER** There’s a scene where Mark Zuckerberg is in his “War Room” with his advisors during the January 6th “Riots.” Rather than allow us, the viewers to see what Zuckerberg is watching, it “conveniently” shows the storming of the Capitol, and selectively only shows moments where Zuckerberg receives word about President Trump’s speech on that day “inciting” his followers to stage an “insurrection.” Do you get to watch all of Trump’s speeches to his followers? No. Again the camera conveniently only shows the footage from, you guessed it, CNN, one of the most ultra-liberal biased networks in existence.

What’s worse is it makes Zuckerberg look like the champion of Free Speech and that he’s “REALLY struggling with the decision to censor a sitting President (remember the full transfer of power wasn’t completed by Vice President Mike Pence till after everything calmed down). ***END SPOILER** A side note: There are plenty of videos out there that show all of the President’s speeches to the protesters in which he clearly tells them to peacefully protest and when that fails he tells them to go home. The film is “filtering.”

Content of Concern

PROFANITY: J*sus (1), J*sus Chr*st (2), Chr*st (2), G*d*mn (2), G*dd*mnit (2), For G*d’s sake (1), G*d (1), H*ll (1), WTH (2), D*mn (1), D*mnit (1)

VULGARITY: Quite Heavy. F**k (7), F**king (18), WTF (2), Sh*t (5), B*llsh*t (1), A**-hole (2), B*tch (1), . In a tik tok video, a woman during a DUI stop begins insulting the police with both personal and racist comments

WOKEISM: Let me be very clear, this film is woke in every way possible. Woke messaging about restricting freedom of speech, censorship, politics completely cover whatever message(s) “The Social Reckoning” is trying to convey

VIOLENCE: In the aforementioned video, the intoxicated woman threatens to kill both cops. A dad, in his outrage and despair, tells Frances he’d really like to find the kids that are cyberbullying his daughter (to the point where the daughter is c*tting herself) and beat them up (he says this out of anger but doesn’t act upon it). The parent goes on to say there are multiple hate speech pages that her classmates made with some telling her to harm herself.

Someone talks about a character being beheaded in a book. This same person also claiming a room had to be redecorated because a Capitol Policeman was beaten so badly that blood wouldn’t come of the carpets and furniture. We bear witness to video footage from the day of the Capitol Riots. We see chaos, violence, police being trampled, windows destroyed, etc. We even see a Capitol Policemen being beaten by a protester.

SEXUAL CONTENT: Two people are in the middle of having intercourse when the phone rings. Someone mentions there are spies on Tinder that pretend to be dates. Frances is seen wearing a cleavage-baring dresses.

DRUGS: Some individuals are seen smoking weed at a party

ALCOHOL: People are seen drinking in multiple scenes in the film.

OTHER: Someone mentions how 32 percent of girls on Facebook see posts that make them insecure about their body images.

There are no genuine redeeming themes I can draw from “The Social Reckoning”

Final Thoughts

“The Social Reckoning” is a massive wolf in sheep’s clothing. It’s like the story of Red Riding Hood. The film acts at first as a champion for free speech and freedom of information (“Grandma” in Red Riding Hood). But underneath is a Wolf waiting for you to be off your guard so they can devour you with extremely Woke ultra-liberal messaging so that you conform to what they believe is right and nothing else.

The trailer is massively deceptive. It never shows Zuckerberg as he truly was, especially during the whole January 6th “riots.” And what it does show is a massive twist in the narrative full of lies, propaganda and horribly baked half truths.

As Christians, we’re called, as the Apostle John put it in 1 John 4: to “test the spirits to determine what is true and what is from God.” So do this!

Apart from a massive amount of vulgar language and some violence to contend with, structurally the “Social Reckoning” is a mess. It takes itself FAR too seriously and tries to tackle too much at once, never really finding its footing.

For these things, I do not recommend “The Social Reckoning.” If you decide to see this, weigh the facts vs. the bias. Know before you go. You could do much better than this film.

• Wokeism: Very Heavy
• Vulgar/Crude language: Very Heavy
• Profane language: Moderately Heavy
• Violence: Moderate
• Sex: Moderate
• Nudity: Mild
• Drugs/Alcohol: Mild
• Occult: None

See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers.