Wait, is this supposed to make Mark Zuckerberg look good?

That’s what a whole lot of people thought after watching the latest trailer for The Social Reckoning on Thursday, which is built around a hyper-serious lecture about why the Facebook boss should have censored political ads before and after President Donald Trump won the 2016 election. The stern talking-to is delivered by a hysterical Bill Burr, who is playing the role of “Charlie,” a fake member of Zuckerberg’s legal team.

“You’re not fact checking politial ads?! ” Charlie whines as the ad kicks off.

“It’s a democracy. I believe in free speech,” Zuckerberg, played by ex-Succession star Jeremy Strong, responds stiffly.

“Yeah, everybody does. This can’t be your answer,” Charlie fires back. He then says, “You’re like a crossing guard standing out in front of a school, but you’re not doing anything with your arms. So the cars are just plowing down the children, because it’s a democracy.”

“The voters aren’t children. They don’t need to be told to eat their vegetables,” Zuckerberg retorts.

“And how about just telling us which ones are vegetables, and which ones are clumps of dirt in the shape of a carrot,” Charlie tells him, as dramatic music plays in the background.

If writer Aaron Sorkin was aiming to get people to hate Zuckerberg for it, it didn’t seem to work. Instead, many on X said the sequel to The Social Network makes it look like Zuckerberg is a “based” First Amendment warrior.

That’s obvious when checking out some of the reactions on X, where the new trailer has been viewed more than 7 million times by Friday afternoon.

“I wish Zuck DID say this fake speech because this fictional version of him is totally right!” Reporter Taylor Lorenz posted. “It’s not Meta or [Zuckerberg’s] job to police speech and decide what the facts are or who the public should be able to hear from.”

Left-leaning pundit Armand Domalewski wondered, “How did a ‘tech billionaire should decide what politicians are allowed to say to voters’ somehow become the left wing position in this argument”?

And plenty of others got a kick out of the trailer seeming to backfire and make Zuckerberg way more likable than Sorkin was intending.

On a similar note, Zuckerberg claimed last year ex-President Joe Biden’s administration “basically pushed” Meta to censor Covid-19 posts which went against the government’s suggestions. He also told Joe Rogan the third-party fact checkers the company had used were “too biased” — which ultimately led him to scrapping the whole operation.

The flick, if you’re itching to see it, even just for unintentional comedy purposes, comes out on Oct. 9.

The post The Social Reckoning Trailer Gets Totally Clowned for Absurdly Serious Pro-Censorship Speech: ‘Making Zuckerberg Sympathetic…’ first appeared on Mediaite.

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