Film Review: The Social Network
The combination of Jesse Eisenberg playing Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, with direction by David Fincher is a stroke of genius. It really is. The story of the creation of Facebook and the conflicts arising from it between the co-founders and others connected to Zuckerberg at the time should have been deathly dull: a semi-autistic computer nerd who some say screwed everyone over (at least in the film, I’ll get to real life later) in order to make his website the Next Big Thing doesn’t sound like a must-see. And indeed the conflicts shouldn’t come across as terribly sympathetic for film audiences – these are Harvard elitists who fell out, and the outcomes (particularly the lawsuits) are a matter of public record. There are no surprises here, yet Fincher manages to keep it gripping from the start.
He’s helped in no small measure by the casting of his star. Eisenberg showed in Zombieland that he has intelligence, charisma and superb comic timing. In ‘The Social Network’ he refines all of those qualities to deliver a dark, interesting and genuinely compelling performance of a notable recluse. Zuckerberg himself has complained that the motivations ascribed to him in the film weren’t what drove him, and that there were numerous factual inaccuracies, but that surely misses the point. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has gone on record saying this was a dramatisation of real events, and he’s quite right – an attempt to capture history would have made this a documentary, which it’s very clearly not; it’s an entertaining but subjective presentation of a true story. Take a look at what Zuckerberg himself has to say:
I think he’s wrong in his conclusion – I think this film is an effective character study that chooses not to take what he says at face value; adapted as it is from Ben Mezrich’s ‘The Accidental Billionaires’. It’s entitled to have its own viewpoint, right or wrong, and co-founder Eduardo Saverin’s (Andrew Garfield, promising pretty and intense things for the Spider-Man reboot) account of that period is likely no more definitive than Zuckerberg’s. The film ultimately is successful at giving a very powerful and electric (the editing in this film is quite brilliant) account of the forces and the period which led to the rise of worldwide social media.
Fincher punctuates Sorkin’s note-perfect dialogue with his normal washed-out palette and it looks just gorgeous, but a niggle remains. Sorkin and Fincher never do take a definitive stand on Zuckerberg – that much power and no agenda? Really? They suggest (as does he) that it was something he just wanted to do, without really understanding (or caring much about) the forces he unleashed, but this never really washes. What they succeed in demonstrating (through a very effective structure, cutting backwards and forwards from two of the lawsuits against Zuckerberg) is the incredible disparity between a bunch of elitist kids who were close before they got very lucky and very powerful indeed, and very much not afterwards. ‘The Social Network’ doesn’t have the punch of ‘Fight Club’ but it too effectively encapsulates the period it’s set in. Great stuff.
9/10
Internet Giants Attack Digital Economy Bill
A letter has been written by UK Internet giants including Facebook, Google and eBay and published in the Financial Times, slamming the Digital Economy Bill:
In a letter to the Financial Times, the group, which also includes UK ISPs such as BT and TalkTalk, said the amendment to the Digital Economy Bill has “obvious shortcomings” and will lead to an “increase in internet service providers blocking websites accused of illegally hosting copyrighted material without cases even reaching a judge”.
The amendment to Clause 17 of the bill, which was passed by the House of Lords last week, gives High Court judges the power to force ISPs to block access to any website with a “substantial” amount of copyright infringing content, such as YouTube.
“Endorsing a policy that would encourage the blocking of websites by UK broadband providers or other internet companies is a very serious step for the UK to take”, the companies said.
“There are myriad legal, technical and practical issues to reconcile before this can be considered a proportionate and necessary public policy option. In some cases, these may never be reconciled. These issues have not even been considered in this case.”
The companies claim the amendment has been rushed through without consultation with industry or consumers.
Although that amendment was withdrawn last night in the Commons it’s just been reinstated by the Lords – you know, those people who weren’t elected and who don’t represent any of us. Any of you who don’t feel that constitutional reform is the number one priority in political life just look at what a wash out this ‘wash up’ is! Would proportional representation and an elected Senate really bring this disgrace about?
Can we twitter our way out of the recession?
A few days ago, through reasons I can’t face going through yet again I found myself marooned in the small village of Thanet, which, apparently, is somewhere near Reading. Upon finding out that the next train I could get was about an hour later I posted a comment on the twitter site that simply put – ‘Stuck in Thanet for an hour, is there anything good to see?’. Within minutes I had 4 messages with suggestions. This got me thinking…
In the last year Twitter has expanded by 1,840%, Facebook now has 300 million active users which, if it were a country would make it the fourth largest country in the world. With alarming regularity we seem to be deluged with a new social media site claiming to be the ‘next big thing.’ 69% of the entire UK population is now online. Businesses seem to be slowly cottoning onto the possibilites of using this for their own advantage, check out Ford for really interesting usage of social media to change the perceptions of their company. Even Gordon Brown has now got a Twitter, and who can forget his first appearance on YouTube?
Despite all these facts social media is still viewed in certain circles with slight suspicion, and I think this has meant that we have missed a trick in kick starting the economy.
If we look at Britain as a company it is obvious that something somewhere recently has gone horribly wrong. In a business prospective if this was happening it would trigger a full internal review – checking that all parts of the company are paying their way, are as productive as possible, accountable for their role, and if not making the necessary changes. As the world is getting smaller, with better transport, bigger supermarkets and the internet, the sense of community and belonging has slowly evaporated from small communities. But there is no reason not to use the internet to combat this.
In times of hardship people always bemoan the downfall of the ‘high street’. People start looking inwardly, trying to balance the financial need of shopping as cheaply as possible with the responsibility of helping the smaller businesses maintain their income. The smaller businesses struggle with maintaining footfall, keeping people in the town center rather than out of town shopping centres through one way or another.
The idea of using social media to get out of the recession is as simple as it is effective. Every town employes a marketing and communications specialist. This person is employed by the town for the town and as such has no political affiliations. The role of the position is to market the town to the inhabitants, and also the people from outside the town. They use email, social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter and any other means possible to brand their area and make it as attractive as possible. They organise events during the year in the town centre and market it appropriately. They liase with local businesses and leisure industries in a bid to try to drive tourism to the town and use these to kick start the economy in the towns again, all the time putting it in the faces of the local community.
This, done well, could have far reaching implications. Giving people a reason to to head into the town centres, to take more pride in the area they live in and to spend that little bit more money than they were expecting to would kick start the economy in the town, larger events would give locals a reason to bring friends and family from outside the area into their part of the world. It would also establish a sense of community, something that has long been lamented as lost in certain circles. If the smaller elements of the economy start to work again the cogs of the big wheels will slowly grind into action once more.
What do you think? Obviously there are a few issues in this idea, but as always I’m interested to know what you may think! Leave a comment and hopefully we’ll be able to throw the ideas round to something a bit more well rounded. In the meantime I’m off to try to become king of Facebook.
