The Shocking Misinformation Shared by ‘The Social Reckoning’

We’re living in the death of shame, says “Fox Across America” host Jimmy Failla.

He couldn’t be more accurate.

Consider Joe Scarborough. The MS NOW anchor told the country, with a straight face, that the 2024 version of Joe Biden was “best” version of the aged leader.

“Start your tape right now because I’m about to tell you the truth. And f-you if you can’t handle the truth. This version of Biden, intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever.”

Scarborough is still employed, and this week he demanded his fellow journalists examine President Donald Trump’s mental capacity with the same vigor they applied to Biden’s.

You can’t make it up.

Now, we have a screenwriter who wrote a biographical film, “The Social Network,” where many of the core facts proved false. He’s back in theaters this weekend with a film that dares to lecture us about misinformation.

Writer/director Aaron Sorkin’s “The Social Reckoning” skewers Facebook on many fronts. The film argues that the social media giant favors clicks over everything else, ignoring the platform’s impact on society.

It steers everyday Americans into the arms of radical hate groups. And, along the way, it spreads copious misinformation to unsuspecting users.

Ahem.

Does “The Social Reckoning” do the same? Consider a key sequence late in the film involving the Jan. 6 riots.

MILD SPOILERS AHEAD

The third act features a re-creation of that awful day, complete with cutaways to key Facebook figures. That includes Mark Zuckerberg, now played by Jeremy Strong. (Jesse Eisenberg played the Facebook founder in the 2010 film)

The sequence suggests that President Donald Trump (though his name is never mentioned), not only sparked the riot but was egging it on in real time.

One of the characters asks if President Trump was trying to restore order. Surely, he’s asking his devoted fans to “disperse” and stop fighting the police.

No, another character laments.

That supports Sorkin’s Orange Man Bad narrative. And it’s not true.

Here’s what President Trump actually posted on Facebook and Instagram during the melee, two platforms that would later censor him.

I know your pain. I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side, but you have to go home now [emphasis added]. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt. It’s a very tough period of time. There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened, where they could take it away from all of us, from me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election, but we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home [emphasis added]. We love you. You’re very special. You’ve seen what happens. You see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel. But go home and go home in peace.

Facebook removed the post, citing it violated the platform’s “Community Standard on Dangerous Individuals and Organizations.”

Trump later shared this message:

These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love in peace. Remember this day forever!

We can say President Trump pushed an election narrative that he has yet to prove in a court of law. He holds some responsibility for the violent protest, one that has been weaponized by the Left and the Media (but we repeat ourselves) in ways that warp what really happened that day.

It was still an ugly stain on the country.

We cannot say he told the rioters to keep going or refused to tell them to go home.

But Sorkin can. He just did so in a major motion picture. No film critic will call it out. No Legacy Media outlet will question his narrative, doing the simple Google search to learn what Trump actually posted that day versus what the film alleges.

Some might label that misinformation.