Newspaper summary

Article written by John Schwartz

On October 3, 2010

No Stopping the movie view of Mark Zuckerberg

 

The author John Schwartz reports that the new movie "The Social Network" does not portray the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in a good light. In the movie Mark Zuckerberg is shown as being nerdy and betrays his friends trust. Mr. Schwartz also quotes David Kirkpatrick author of "The Facebook Effect" who said "The reality is , it's a really good movie- however, it's not a true story."

Mr. Schwartz goes on to talk about if it is ok for filmmakers to "make up" stories about real people. Also he brings up can they be sued for libel and if so would Mark Zuckerberg be declared a public figure. Two others a scholar from Vanderbilt Univ. and a professor at Univ. of California L.A. law school thought it would be unlikely that Zuckerberg would be able to prevail in a lawsuit for libel. How ever the article goes on to state that if he where to try it would most likely be in a more favorable venue like England where Free speech is not as important and the laws favor the libel plaintiff.

More than likely the company will not do anything , they have basically said that it was a work of fiction. The filmmakers however had said that they worked hard to get it correct.