In an interview published in Good Weekend, Sorkin discussed his approach to the material and defended his trademark idealism. The Social Reckoning centres on Haugen, who provided internal documents to Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz revealing that Facebook knew about negative effects of its platforms and resisted addressing them.
Sorkin acknowledged that his movies are often more idealistic than realistic, a criticism he has faced throughout his career. The interview took place on two occasions, once before and once after Meta settled a landmark lawsuit about harms its social media platforms cause teenagers.
"Before a movie can be anything else, before it can be thought-provoking or relevant, it has to be good," Sorkin said. "It has to work as something that you watch while you're eating popcorn. That's what I'm thinking about while I'm writing. Beyond that, I write idealistically and romantically."
Sorkin has, for the past quarter-century, dramatised institutions at the centre of American society, from A Few Good Men and The West Wing to The Newsroom and The Social Network. His work has shaped public understanding of how politics, media and the military work in the United States, or how they should work.