Social Reckoning is media literacy with a $30m budget
I'm Ben Whitelaw and this is Trust & Safety Insider. I'm stepping in for Alice to share my review of The Social Reckoning, the Hollywood film that hit cinemas over the weekend.
From the responses I've received to Friday's newsletter (EiM #358), many of you are planning to see it in the coming weeks. I'd love to hear your thoughts — plot, performance, accuracy, whatever stirs you up — and to run a future edition of T&S Insider with the reviews of T&S professionals.
Until then, thanks for reading — Ben
Safe Space’s latest episode discusses how to tell T&S stories more effectively.
Season three of the Safe Space podcast is here. Hosted by Cassie Coccaro, Communications Lead at Thorn, and Pailes Halai, Senior Manager of Partnerships at Thorn, this podcast dives into the personal journeys of those shaping the future of the digital world.
- Ep 1: Dr. Rachel Kowert, research psychologist
- Ep 2: Alice Hunsberger 😁
- Ep 3: Marc Leone from GIPHY
- TrustCon Roundtable: Joel Roth, Ben Whitelaw, and Vaishnavi J
These conversations are wide-ranging, offering a glimpse into how each of these leaders approach their work and wellbeing.
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XCheck hits the multiplex
At the press screening of The Social Reckoning in London last week, there were leaflets left on the chairs that implored people who watch it to "get angry".
If you read the reviews for the film over the past week, you might have thought that message was intended for them. That's because almost no-one has a good thing to say about it.
The Financial Times said it falls “frustratingly flat” and is a “hacky, frustrating sequel”, IndieWire called it a “draggy, so-what journo drama” and The Guardian said it is “jittery” before calling out — not without reason, if you ask me — its “false notes”. There are plenty of other unfavourable reviews I could have chosen.
In fact, the only entirely positive review that I've read believed that the film, with all of its dramatic licence, was entirely accurate. It is very much not, as one of its protagonists, then Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz, makes very clear.
However, I don’t think the criticism matters much, because the film is working to a different brief. It has a specific destination in mind, which is to get the public to consciously uncouple from Meta and, somewhat by extension, Big Tech at large. It's less of a film and more like $30 million worth of media literacy.
Let me explain why that's good and bad.