Mikey Madison’s portrayal of Frances Haugen in the long-awaited sequel to The Social Network just got way more real. After winning the Oscar for Best Leading Actress in Anora, many wondered what her next big picture movie will be. She’ll be playing Haugen in The Social Reckoning! The movie posters just dropped today, and many wonder: Who is Frances Haugen?
Who Is Frances Haugen, & Why Is Mikey Madison Playing Her?
GettyHaugen is the whistleblower that disclosed thousands of Facebook’s internal documents, which showed how harmful Facebook was to youth. The Harvard graduate is a data scientist and engineer who joined Facebook back in 2019.
She was a part of the team to help make Facebook a source of good, but the team dissolved in 2020. After being disillusioned from the team ending, she became a whistleblower. She leaked many files and even testified before numerous legal committees around the world, including the US and UK.
After the leaks, she wrote a memoir called The Power of One: How I Found the Strength to Tell the Truth and Why I Blew the Whistle on Facebook, and founded a nonprofit. She created Beyond the Screen, a group to help spark change in social media to better protect its users.
Who Is Starring in The Social Reckoning?
GettyAs we know, Madison will be starring as Haugen. Emmy-winning actor Jeremy Allen White will be starring alongside her as Jeff Horwitz, a Wall Street Journal journalist that broke the infamous Facebook Files expose.
Jeremy Strong will be playing the role of Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg. (In the first film, Zuckerberg was played by Jesse Eisenberg.)
Other stars include Oscar-nominated actress Wunmi Mosaku, Bill Burr, Portia Doubleday, and Billy Magnussen, to name a few.
Written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, The Social Reckoning is a standalone sequel thriller that follows the 2021 Facebook leaks. The Social Network first came out in 2010, which was directed by David Fincher and written by Sorkin. (It won three Oscars, with Sorokin winning for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay, Best Achievement in Film Editing, and Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score.)
The Social Reckoning will release in theaters in October 9, 2026.
Mikey Madison Wants to Contact Frances Haugen
“There was just not an ounce of edge to her, all soft corners,” Madison said to Vanity Fair in June 2026 about what drew her to Haugen. Madison is known for edgier roles in Scream 5 and Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood. She added, “I had a lot of fun crafting her inward idiosyncrasies, her mousiness, and nervous calculation of everything at all times with no rest.”
“I have so many questions for Frances I hope to ask her one day,” Madison added to the outlet. “Mostly, I hope she feels that we captured the spirit of her bravery and that she knows how much Aaron and I care about her.”
