Following the combined impact of a worldwide outage and a whistleblower interview, Facebook has been in the news a lot this week. To round it out, we also have news about an upcoming TV series titled Doomsday Machine focusing on, you guessed it, Facebook.
Claire Foy, best known for playing Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown, has been cast as Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg in a scripted series about Facebook.
Doomsday Machine is based on Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang’s bestselling book, An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination. Both authors are reporters for the New York Times and will serve as executive producers and consultants on the TV show.
The series is created by Ayad Akhtar, a Pulitzer-winning playwright and author of the novel Homeland Elegies. It’s backed by Anonymous Content (Mr Robot) and wiip (Mare of Easttown).
Several journalists will also be brought in as consultants on the series to help ensure its accuracy.
There’s no word yet on who will be playing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who was previously portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network.
What is Doomsday Machine about?
According to Variety, Doomday Machine will explore the relationship between Zuckerberg and Sandberg as well as the obstacles Facebook has faced on its quest for growth.
The outlet reports that Doomsday Machine will begin in 2016 and follow the rise of misinformation during the U.S. presidential election.
It will also cover the company’s awareness of mental health risks posed to young users by Instagram and the uncovering of the XCHECK program that shielded users like Donald Trump, as well as the ways Zuckerberg pushed to use the News Feed as his own platform for propaganda about Facebook.
Public perception of Facebook has changed a lot in the 10 years since The Social Network was released. Scrutiny of the tech giant will probably be even higher after Doomsday Machine brings some of Facebook’s questionable history to the screen.