Writer and Academy Award Winner Aaron Sorkin has given updates on his potential sequel to his acclaimed drama, The Social Network, which will examine the origins of Facebook, and its impact on U.S. democracy.

On a recent episode of the podcast The Town, Sorkin told Matthew Belloni and Peter Hamby, “Look, yeah, I’ll be writing about this. I blame Facebook for January 6.” When asked to elaborate on the project, Sorkin says, “You’re going to need to buy a movie ticket.”

Sorkin did share, though, that he’s been “trying” to crack the project as a film specifically. “Facebook has been, among other things, tuning its algorithm to promote the most divisive material possible, because that is what will increase engagement. That is what will get you to, what they call inside the hallways of Facebook, ‘the infinite scroll,” Sorkin said. “There’s supposed to be a constant tension at Facebook between growth and integrity. There isn’t; there’s just growth.”

Sources close to Sorkin stress that this project is in “very, very early stages” and has no relation to a previous January 6 project he’d spoken about making.

Sorkin has repeatedly alluded to a Social Network sequel in recent years, telling the Happy Sad Confused podcast in 2020 that he intended to examine “the dark side of Facebook” but stressing, “I will only write it if [original filmmaker David Fincher] directs it.” In a 2021 interview with Deadline, Sorkin explains that “there is a story,” and that its “something [he] wouldn’t want to do without David Fincher.”

The Social Network was directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin, based on the 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich. It portrays the founding of Facebook. It stars Jesse Eisenberg as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, with Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin, Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker, Armie Hammer as Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and Max Minghella as Divya Narendra. The film was a success both commercially and critically, grossing over $224 million and garnering several Academy Award nominations, one of which Sorkin won for Best Adapted Screenplay.