The Social Network: The Facebook Movie

The Social Network is a movie about the experiences of the originators of the social-networking website, Facebook. On a fall night in 2003, Harvard undergraduate and computer programming genius Mark Zuckerberg sits down at his computer and heatedly begins drafting a new idea. In a fury of blogging and programming, what begins in his dorm room soon becomes a global social network and a revolution in communication. A mere six years later, Mark Zuckerberg has five hundred million friends and is the youngest billionaire in history... but for this entrepreneur, success leads to both personal and legal complications; for as expected, you don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies
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The Facebook Movie portrays Zuckerberg as a greedy, ruthless and backstabbing business person that puts success ahead of his friends and relationships . In more than many ways, this portrayal of Zuckerberg seems not to be far fetched. Facebook has come under criticism for failing to safeguard it's user from the countless security threats that are found on the Web. It would seem, according to most critics, that Facebook is a thriving gold mine for identity thieves, stalkers, spammers and all sorts of cyber criminals. Could it be that Facebook's business model is reflective of it's founders business and personal ethic? Could it be that Facebook is placing financial success ahead it's five hundred million friends?
Zuckerberg's Reaction to the Movie
In what appears to be a public relations stunt Zuckerberg has announced a new Start-Up Education Foundation that will initially fund public schools in Newark, New Jersey. To this end, he has committed $100 million. In addition, Zuckerberg invited The Oprah Winfrey Show to his rented and modest house in what appears to be a desperate attempt to burnish his image as just the ordinary billionaire next door. For a while, one is tempted to think that The Social Network Movie has made Zuckerberg realize that “the social network” so to speak, has to be lived and experienced not only in cyberspace, but also in the communities where we spend our day to day lives. Maybe its better to have 50 friends in your community that to have five hundred million friends in cyberspace!
Given the movies harsh characterization of Zuckerberg, it takes no great effort to see why Zuckerberg disapproves the movie. The boyish billionaire has this to say about the movie 'It's a movie, it's fun, you know, a lot of it is fiction but even the filmmakers will say that...I promise you, this is my life, so I know it's not that dramatic....the last six years have been a lot of coding, and focus, and hard work, but you know maybe it would be fun to remember it as partying and all this crazy drama.'
While the The Social Network explores the narrative of the founders of Facebook, it also highlights some of the challenges associated with social networking sites. There is no doubt that a considerable number of users of social-networking sites have found themselves compounded by both legal and personal complications. In more than many ways, The Social Network Movie invites all of us to re-interrogate the value of social networks.
As implied by the tag line “you don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies”, we indeed need to re-examine the concept of friendship in the context of social networks. Is it possible to have 500 million friends or followers? Is it really possible to know five hundred million persons? What are the benefits and risks of availing our personal information to potentially five hundred million friends? Is there room for privacy in such an environment? The are but a few questions that bother me.