The Social Reckoning ends with Frances Haugen testifying before Congress after helping expose Facebook’s internal documents. She pumps her fist because she has gone through with it despite her fear of being identified. Then the epilogue reminds us that Facebook is still operating and Zuckerberg remains in charge.

Frances has every reason to feel relieved. After the January 6 sequence, I have a harder time sharing her excitement.

Why Frances Pumps Her Fist

Frances wants Facebook to fix the problems its researchers have found. Mikey Madison’s character still believes the company can do some good. That’s why she spends so much time trying to convince people inside it to listen.

Eventually she takes the documents to Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz. Jeremy Allen White’s Jeff needs her help understanding the technical details. She needs to know she can trust him before handing over more information. A mistake could cost her a career.

Those early conversations give her testimony some weight. Frances goes from worrying about being exposed to explaining the findings under her own name. When she raises her fist afterward, I read it as relief at having made it through something she was afraid to do.

The gesture is understandable. Sorkin’s decision to end on it is where I hesitate. A public hearing can feel like a huge achievement for the person giving evidence. The company can still carry on afterward, as the epilogue makes clear.

How Zuckerberg Defends Facebook

Zuckerberg argues that users should be free to express themselves. He also insists that Facebook has to earn money. Those arguments help explain why the Zuckerberg played by Jeremy Strong resists changes that could reduce engagement.

Facebook chooses which posts get pushed in front of more people. Leaving a post on someone’s page is one choice. Recommending it to other users is another. The film keeps coming back to that decision because Zuckerberg’s defense leaves so little room for the company’s own responsibility.

Employees have identified problems and suggested changes. Zuckerberg resists measures that could make people less active on the platform.

The Instagram findings add a more intimate concern. Frances discovers research about teenage girls feeling worse about their bodies. That recalls the beauty pressure in The Substance, though Sorkin focuses on what happens inside the company once that distress has been documented.

By going public, Frances puts those findings where other people can question Facebook about them. She still has to depend on others to act on what she’s shown them.

What The January 6 Sequence Adds

Frances’s testimony and the January 6 Capitol attack happened months apart. The ending brings them together to show what Sorkin thinks is at stake in the arguments over Facebook’s decisions.

The woman Frances knew earlier in the story reappears at the Capitol. Her presence gives the discussion of online radicalization a person to follow. The film connects her change to the communities she encountered on Facebook.

The attack had causes beyond Facebook, but he wants us to see how recommendations can help people find extremist groups. Placing the violence beside the testimony also makes the celebratory finish feel awkward. We have just been shown how much damage the film believes these decisions can do.

Like Oppenheimer‘s struggle with responsibility, the story asks what people owe others once they understand the harm their work can cause. Here Facebook already has employees warning about the risks.

The Social Network left us with Zuckerberg’s personal isolation. The Social Reckoning gives Frances a moment of satisfaction and then asks us to look at the company she challenged. I find the epilogue more convincing than the fist pump. Frances has done something brave, but the reminder that Zuckerberg keeps his job is hard to shake.

Daniel Wilson

Daniel has loved movies since he was four, when he started exploring a chest of drawers filled with VHS tapes. He writes about film with a particular interest in sci-fi, drama, and action. His favorites include the work of Christopher Nolan, Denis Villeneuve, and David Fincher, along with Terminator, Predator, Alien, and Blade Runner.