Well, that’s a curveball regarding the drama over January 6. For liberals, it remains burned into their memories. For everyone else, we do not care anymore. Yet, the Justice Department has joined Democrats in arresting and charging hundreds of people for walking around the U.S. Capitol that day. Only one person, Ashli Babbitt, was killed, and it was by a Capitol Police officer. Was it our nation’s proudest moment? No, but it wasn’t worse than the Civil War or Pearl Harbor, and it's been weaponized by Democrats to go after their political enemies. Donald Trump is the number one public enemy, but Aaron Sorkin, creator of The West Wing, has a different culprit in mind: Facebook.
Specifically, Sorkin blames Mark Zuckerberg for allowing insanity to reign on his platform, which he views as the never-ending drug that’s fueled the division in this country for the past decade or so. It’s the algorithm from which all content is disseminated. Sorkin is no fan of Trump, being an outspoken liberal. Still, he trained a lot of fire toward Zuckerberg in a recent podcast, where he was mum on many details but openly said he blamed the tech billionaire for the January 6 riot. Mediaite transcribed the interview Sorkin had on The Town with Matt Belloni:
Aaron Sorkin confirms he's writing another Facebook movie 14 years after "The Social Network" because “I blame Facebook for January 6.”
— Variety (@Variety) April 26, 2024
“Facebook has been, among other things, tuning its algorithm to promote the most divisive material possible. Because that is what will increase… pic.twitter.com/3oIYpxFWtf
Belloni: Oh, that means “yes.” That actually means “yes.”
Sorkin: Look, yeah, I’ll be writing about this. I blame Facebook for January 6th.
Belloni: You do?
Sorkin: Yeah, I do.
Belloni: Okay, but explain, why?
Sorkin: You’re going to need to buy a movie ticket.
Belloni: Oh, you’re going to write a movie about this?
Sorkin: I’m trying.
[…]
Sorkin: Facebook has been, among other things, tuning its algorithm and tuning its algorithm to promote the most divisive material possible, because that is what will increase engagement. That is what will get you to what they call inside the hallways of Facebook the “infinite scroll.”
Belloni: But whose responsibility is that?
Sorkin: Mark Zuckerberg.
Belloni: You think so? You think if Mark Zuckerberg stopped it tomorrow, that all the problems in this country will go away?
Sorkin: There is supposed to be a constant tension at Facebook between growth and integrity. There isn’t. It’s just growth. So if Mark Zuckerberg woke up tomorrow morning and realized that there is nothing you can buy for $120 billion that you can’t buy for $119 billion… So how about if I make a little bit less money? I will tune up integrity, tune down growth. Yes, you can do that by honestly switching a one to a zero and a 0 to 1.
Treating this event like it was some calamity was always a stretch. We’ve seen commentators liken this to the 9/11 attacks, which are offensive and historically illiterate. No one cares about this little riot anymore. It’s never resonated beyond the circulation of The New York Times. Still, interestingly, Sorkin views Big Tech as the primary facilitator of what happened that day, not Trump, though I’m sure some anti-Trump nonsense will be threaded into the screenplay of this project.
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