The Social Network

[Miriel]

Ok, so I've been reading up on the actual events of what happened with Facebook and it just seems more and more wrong to me that they messed with so many of the facts.

~ In the summer that Zuckerberg moved out to CA, he repeatedly asked Eduardo to come out because he needed Eduardo to sign off on new investors. Facebook was in desperate need of cash investors and Eduardo was holding things up. At one point he emailed Eduardo offering him frequent flyer miles if that would get him out to CA, but Eduardo refused.

~ Eduardo put up unauthorized ads onto facebook, advertising a new startup jobs board that he was working on on his own. In an email from Zuckerberg to Eduardo:

You developed Joboozle knowing that at some point Facebook would probably want to do something with jobs. This was pretty surprising to us, because you basically made something on the side that will end up competing with Facebook and that's pretty bad by itself. But putting ads up on Facebook to advertise it, especially for free, is just mean.

~ Eduardo's shares were diluted down not from 30% to .003 or whatever it said in the movie, but from 24% to less than 10%. It was diluted sure, but not the crazy ass point zero zero something the movie dreamed up.

~ During the time when Eduardo was supposed to be getting investors, setting up the company, and making a business model, he did none of those things.

In an email, Zuckerberg wrote:

"Eduardo is refusing to co-operate at all…We basically now need to sign over our intellectual property to a new company and just take the lawsuit…I'm just going to cut him out and then settle with him. And he'll get something I'm sure, but he deserves something…He has to sign stuff for investments and he's lagging and I can't take the lag."

It basically looks like Eduardo deserved to get cut out of the company since he was legitimately putting the company in financial danger. The movie played it completely the other way.

I think it's totally wrong to mess with someone's reputation like that. Zuckerberg might actually be a dick in real life, who knows, but I think it's wrong for Hollywood to make fiction out of this life and play it off as fact.

[Clo]

But... but... the movie was so entertaining.

[charliepanayi]

It's a film, not a documentary. It says it's adapted from a book (for which only Saverin was consulted), it doesn't say 'based on stuff that all actually really happened'. I enjoyed the film because I thought it was good and I liked the themes it explores, not because I thought it was the gospel truth of how Facebook was created.

[Madame Adequate]

It's a film, not a documentary. It says it's adapted from a book (for which only Saverin was consulted), it doesn't say 'based on stuff that all actually really happened'. I enjoyed the film because I thought it was good and I liked the themes it explores, not because I thought it was the gospel truth of how Facebook was created.

That's a hell of a copout. You can't make a movie about something that happened less than a decade ago, seriously distort the facts, and then say "Oh it's creative license " This sort of thing could be seriously, seriously harmful to people's reputations.

[Miriel]

It's a film, not a documentary. It says it's adapted from a book (for which only Saverin was consulted), it doesn't say 'based on stuff that all actually really happened'. I enjoyed the film because I thought it was good and I liked the themes it explores, not because I thought it was the gospel truth of how Facebook was created.

I'm not saying that the film was a bad film. The performances, the editing, pacing, storytelling, it was all good. But there was a significant level of discomfort for me, WHILE watching the film, knowing that this film was completely distorting and potentially ruining the reputation of a guy who is only 26 years old. I mean, my god. Can you imagine? I'm only 2 years younger than him and I don't know how anyone would cope with something like this.

[Alive-Cat]

I don't wanna watch a movie that's not really that dramatic, the antagonist isn't actually that bad, the main character's shares don't actually decrease an insane amount, etc. To make a successful movie I guess they had to make it a bit more entertaining. It is a bit harsh portraying real people a certain way though, especially without their permission.
I haven't even seen it, but it sounds good, so I'll watch it at the nearest possible time.

[charliepanayi]

It's a film, not a documentary. It says it's adapted from a book (for which only Saverin was consulted), it doesn't say 'based on stuff that all actually really happened'. I enjoyed the film because I thought it was good and I liked the themes it explores, not because I thought it was the gospel truth of how Facebook was created.

That's a hell of a copout. You can't make a movie about something that happened less than a decade ago, seriously distort the facts, and then say "Oh it's creative license " This sort of thing could be seriously, seriously harmful to people's reputations.

Come off it, 'seriously harmful to people's reputations'? The film makes out Zuckerberg to be an arrogant git at times but it doesn't demonise him (it certainly leaves the question of whether he stole the idea for Facebook open). All biopics or films based on real events are by nature biased in some direction.

[Shlup]

Sounds like the facts are pretty far off to me. I thought Eduardo already deserved to be fired just based off the movie, but the facts Miriel presented make Zuckerberg seem far more of a reasonable person.

If I had done the right thing for my company, and then my ex-friend went and had a book written about his perspective, and then they made a movie based on that book, making me look like a backstabbing asshole to millions of people... I would be pretty smurfing unhappy about it.

A lot of people will think this way about this guy now, and that's totally unfair to him. All that millions of people know about Mark Zuckerberg, they learned from that movie. He's only 26, and this movie is going to follow him around forever. Put yourself in his shoes for a minute before you start telling people to "come off it." Don't even try to tell me you wouldn't be bothered if you were him.

[Rye]

Yeah, thinking about this has put a sour taste in my mouth over the movie.

[Pheesh]

It's a film, not a documentary. It says it's adapted from a book (for which only Saverin was consulted), it doesn't say 'based on stuff that all actually really happened'. I enjoyed the film because I thought it was good and I liked the themes it explores, not because I thought it was the gospel truth of how Facebook was created.

I'm not saying that the film was a bad film. The performances, the editing, pacing, storytelling, it was all good. But there was a significant level of discomfort for me, WHILE watching the film, knowing that this film was completely distorting and potentially ruining the reputation of a guy who is only 26 years old. I mean, my god. Can you imagine? I'm only 2 years younger than him and I don't know how anyone would cope with something like this.

I assume 1 billion dollars helps lots of people cope with a lot of things.

Seriously though people, I understand that some of you may have wanted to see a movie that was more factual or something, but the majority of movie goers want to be entertained; and that's what this movie accomplished. It was amazingly written, the acting was good and I agree with charlie in that the movie didn't really demonize Zuckerburg that much, and even if it did I doubt he's going to lose much sleep over it.

[charliepanayi]

Sounds like the facts are pretty far off to me. I thought Eduardo already deserved to be fired just based off the movie, but the facts Miriel presented make Zuckerberg seem far more of a reasonable person.

If I had done the right thing for my company, and then my ex-friend went and had a book written about his perspective, and then they made a movie based on that book, making me look like a backstabbing asshole to millions of people... I would be pretty smurfing unhappy about it.

A lot of people will think this way about this guy now, and that's totally unfair to him. All that millions of people know about Mark Zuckerberg, they learned from that movie. He's only 26, and this movie is going to follow him around forever. Put yourself in his shoes for a minute before you start telling people to "come off it." Don't even try to tell me you wouldn't be bothered if you were him.

If I were in Mark Zuckerberg's shoes I'd be a billionaire in my 20s and frankly the opinion of a few idiot filmgoers who accept everything they're told on a cinema screen would matter little to me in the long run. He's hardly going to become a pariah over this - and the film does have him stabbing his friend in the back but it still retains some sympathy for him, casting Sean Parker as a Svengali-like figure seducing Mark for instance. And as Rashida Jones' character says at the end, 'you're not an ***hole Mark, you're just trying so hard to be one'.

[Del Murder]

I'd be mad even if I was a billionare. Sure the billions would help but there are some things money can't buy. It's really silly to assume how much or how little this affects the real Mark. All we can do is think about how it would affect us. And I'd be smurfing pissed.

[Pheesh]

*shrug* Yeah, maybe. I don't know him, but if the movie was remotely accurate about his character it would seem like notoriety isn't exactly something that phases him, even when he isn't insanely rich.

[Del Murder]

That's true, but the whole point is that this may not be an accurate representation of his character (and it most certainly can't be in a lot of respects since he had nothing to do with the movie). But if it was in that regard, then yeah he probably doesn't give a smurf.

[Madame Adequate]

I wish I was rich. Not so that I had money, but because wealth magically means that I'm immune to personal attacks.