‘Social Network’ Trailer Teases Left’s War on Free Speech
Aaron Sorkin's 1995 rom-com reflected party's old stance take on 1A
Liberals use to own the First Amendment.
Think the Berkeley Free Speech Movement of the 1960s, the rise of rebel comics like Lenny Bruce and the defense of controversial art like “Piss Christ” and “The Last Tempatation of Christ.”
The Right, more often than we’d like to admit, suggested certain art shouldn’t be shared far and wide.
It’s nuanced, of course, but left-leaning Americans had the First Amendment’s back. That was never more obvious than via 1995’s “The American President,” written by Aaron Sorkin.
Consider this pivotal speech shared by President Andrew Shepherd (Michael Douglas) in the climactic debate.
America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You’ve gotta want it bad, ’cause it’s gonna put up a fight. It’s gonna say, “You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.” You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms.
Would Sorkin write that same speech today? Would any left-leaning movie scribe?
Unlikely.
The Left has rallied to smite speech for at least the past decade. Progressive stars cheered when Donald Trump got booted from multiple social media platforms. Leftists stood down as Cancel Culture dominated the landscape, stifling comics’ ability to tell their punch lines on their terms.
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They teamed with Twitter to suppress right-leaning views on that platform. They also harassed, attacked and silenced right-leaning souls to attempted to speak on campuses nationwide.
Adam Carolla and Dennis Prager even made a movie about that silencing movement, one that liberal critics skewered for defending speech.
Now, Sorkin is back as the writer/director of “The Social Reckoning.” The Oct. 9 release is a sequel, of sorts, to the Oscar-winning drama “The Social Network.” The new film apparently savages both Facebook and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, for their negative impact on the culture.
There’s plenty to be said about Zuckerberg’s digital leadership and social media’s ability to tweak algorithms to gin up a desired result.
Anger. Misinformation. Joy. Fear. Addiction. That’s a worthy subject for any film.
That isn’t the prime target here, though. The film’s October release date is your first clue. The film drops roughly a month before the midterm elections.
Sorkin, a far-Left storyteller, has something he wants to share before ballots are cast.
The film also will touch on, to say the very least, the Jan. 6 riot. That event has been weaponized by the Left and Legacy Media outlets (but we repeat ourselves) to a frightening degree. It’s a combination of Fake News, bias by omission and partisan talking points.
Now, the fracas will get a big-screen closeup. Anyone expecting Sorkin to depict the riot fairly doesn’t know Sorkin or Hollywood in toto.
What’s most interesting about the film’s first trailer? No Jan. 6 footage. Not yet, at least. But it’s coming via subsequent trailers.
Bank on it.
Every revolution begins with a reckoning.
The Social Reckoning, a companion piece to The Social Network, is coming exclusively to theatres October 9. pic.twitter.com/JjAsBnI0py
— Sony (@Sony) June 10, 2026
The film’s first trailer even suggests Zuckerberg is a villain for using the First Amendment as his defense. Imagine that. Segments feel like actual talking points from an MS NOW anchor.
“The firehouse of bad information you’re injecting into the air supply is becoming jet-powered,” a character played by comedian Bill Burr rages at Zuckerberg (Jeremy Strong, taking over for Jesse Eisenberg).
Like the Russian Collusion Hoax? The Very Fine People Hoax? The Suckers and Losers Hoax? The Hunter Biden Laptop Isn’t Real Hoax?
The trailer lets the Zuckerberg character respond.
“I’m a free speech absolutist,” Zuckerberg answers in his best boo-hiss tone. “I’m not the one who’s lying, and I’m not stopping them from seeing someone who is.”
Will audiences care about a Facebook investigation that generated mostly yawns? What about Jan. 6, already in history’s rearview mirror?
Does it matter?
The film will get endless media coverage and possible awards consideration for aligning with the progressive playbook on speech and social media.
Free speech can be tricky and, sometimes, potentially dangerous. Sorkin and his ilk want to blame Jan. 6 and, more broadly, the rise fo President Donald Trump on the First Amendment.
Will “The Social Reckoning” crystalize that effort on the Left, and potentially sway some hearts and minds? Or, more charitably, will it highlight the darker elements of social media, something both sides of the aisle must care about?
We’ll see starting Oct. 9.
Notice that even in Sorkin’s speech from The American President, the only free speech he specifically offers as worthy of celebration is burning an American flag.
The truth is, leftists like him never really supported free speech, except when it was convenient to them politically. They supported the speech that helped their side, and sat back and let the other side’s speech get shut down whenever it happened. Now that they own our institutions, they’re just being more honest about how they feel about free expression. Just like in any other society on Earth, once leftists’ power increases, free speech decreases, until it’s gone forever.
That’s certainly possible. Still, even the ACLU was unabashedly in favor of speech at the time. In recent years, the group seems hell bent on discussing everthing but speech – unless it has a liberal motive behind it.