I regret to inform you that Mark Zuckerberg and video lucah artis jakartaAaron Sorkin are publicly feuding over free speech And yes, the whole thing is about as dumb as you'd expect.
It all started when theSocial Networkwriter published an open letter to Zuckerberg in the The New York Times, saying that Facebook is "assaulting the truth."
Hours after Sorkin's scathing letter (if factually flawed; the Timeslater published a lengthy correction addressing several inaccuracies), Zuckerberg (sort of) fired back with a Facebook post of his own.
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His response? A quote defending free speech from the 1995 Sorkin-penned film American President.
"America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say: You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the land of the free."
- Aaron Sorkin, The American President
Somewhere, Sorkin is surely shaking in his boots.
It's easy to see why, to Zuckerberg — who is so awkward there are entire internet communities dedicated to questioning whether he's a literal robot — it's the perfect dunk. He gets to use Sorkin's own words against him. Zing!
And, surely, it wasn't difficult for Zuck to cherrypick the right quote. Sorkin has, after all, built an entire career on cloyingly idealistic soliloquies about how America's great institutions are "supposed" to function (but never do)yep. This could have just as easily been a quote from The West Wingor The Newsroomor some other Sorkin political fantasy.
SEE ALSO: Facebook leaves no doubt: It's the right wing's social network nowUnfortunately for Zuck, it's also the lamest possible comeback. Even calling it a "dunk" feels a bit generous, if I'm being honest.
For one, while they may be Sorkin's words, they were spoken by a fictional character. More troubling, they do nothing at all to address the very real concerns about Facebook's refusal to hold politicians accountable for spreading lies and propaganda on its platform.
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