Bill Burr Doesn't Hold Back on Big Tech: “These People Are Reptiles”

Summary Collider's Steve Weintraub talks with Bill Burr for The Social Reckoning. Burr discusses what it's really like working with Aaron Sorkin on set. He also comments on the dangers of misinformation and prioritizing profit over safety. “Shut the engine off. What are we doing here?” asks comedian and actor Bill Burr in his interview with Collider’s Steve Weintraub. Burr, who joined the ensemble cast of Aaron Sorkin’s follow-up to The Social Network, The Social Reckoning, calls out Big Tech companies and their leaders, including Mark Zuckerberg, for more accountability. “They need to be stopped or regulated or something.” In the movie, Facebook engineer and whistleblower Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison) begins meeting with Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White) in secret to share information about the company’s negligence in addressing the dangers of its own algorithm. The Social Reckoning also stars Jeremy Strong as Zuckerberg, Wunmi Mosaku, Betty Gilpin, and Billy Magnussen. During this interview, Burr discusses his experience working with Sorkin, refuting the “punctuation tyrant” rumors, and shares what it was like collaborating with the writer-director on set. He also comments on the impact of a film like The Social Reckoning and how damaging tech companies’ influence can be without intervention. You can watch the full interview in the video above, with a transcript provided below. Bill Burr Says Aaron Sorkin Isn't a "Punctuation Tyrant" "It was like doing a play." Image via Sony Pictures COLLIDER: I'm doing a supercut of everyone I'm talking to recently, and the question is: Where do you like to sit in a movie theater? BILL BURR: The middle. The middle in the middle. I don't like going to the back. I like dead center. Jumping into why I get to talk to you. You find out Aaron Sorkin is interested in meeting with you for this film. At first, did you think he was trying to reach a different Bill Burr? BURR: Oh, yeah. I thought the whole thing, the fact that he wanted to pitch the movie to me, was hilarious. To me, it's like, dude, you're Aaron Sorkin. Like, I would literally dust around a room with no lines just to be in a movie with you. But it's real. He's super humble. You wouldn't know that he's a legend. He's really passionate, and I love the guy. I love the guy. I could not have had a better time working on this. We've hung out a couple of times as he was going through the edit. You know, I smoke cigars, he has the occasional cigarette, so we would meet up and hang out and just talk about life and everything. He's just an awesome, awesome guy. You're known for your distinct comedic voice and your timing, and I'm very curious what it was like, because Aaron’s scripts, you’ve got to deliver the words. You’ve got to hit the comma. So what was it like adapting to his rhythm and structure? BURR: You know, it's not like that. It's more like you're in a scene with somebody else, and you're just listening to them and then reacting to what they're doing. So it's not like, “Hey, I'm so-and-so.” It's not like music: This is in seven, it's not in four. It's not like that. You just do it. It was like doing a play, I felt like. I've written some things, so you write things, and then actors go up, and they do it, and they could do it in a completely different way, and you're like, “Oh, I didn't look at it that way. That's cool. I like that.” Or they go too far in a direction, “Hey, let's adjust it this way.” It was more like that. But he wasn't like some sort of punctuation tyrant or whatever. He would come out and be like, “Hey, you added that little something there,” and I’d go, “Oh, is that cool?” He’d go, “No, no, I like that. I like that. I like that. Keep that.” It was more like that. It wasn't like some claustrophobic creative environment. Bill Burr Wants Big Tech Held Accountable "These people are reptiles." Image via Sony Pictures This is one of those movies that I view as incredibly important just because it is urgent that so many people understand what social media does to people, and the fact that a lot of these technology companies just put profit above everything else. What do you hope an 18-year-old who watches this takes away from the movie? BURR: That's hard when you're, like, 18 to get your head around the fact that adults could be that cruel, so I don't know. It's crazy! I've been saying, if you had a business that was causing kids, through cyberbullying, to kill themselves, I mean, okay, emergency brake. Shut the engine off. What are we doing here? The solution to trying to come up with some sort of corporate speak around it so you don't take a dip in your next quarter profits? I mean, these people are reptiles. They need to be stopped or regulated or something. And this whole idea that, like, “Hey, it's the internet, so there are no rules of libel or slander,” it's not a good thing. You shouldn't be able to lie about people. You shouldn't be able to lie about things, mislead people — especially your own countrymen. At what point is that treason? Hey, you shouldn't be able to poison your own food supply for more profit. If you were to poison some food and feed it to people, you or I, we would be in jail. We would be a terrorist. These people pay a fine? I don't understand it. It's completely, completely out of control. Yeah, journalism is gone. It's just been totally taken over, and now it's just these CNN, Fox News just blaming each other. It’s like op-ed pieces. So, I really don't have an answer for that. I'm like everybody else; I'm trying to figure out how not to be addicted to my phone. I'm trying to figure out what is actually the truth. I mean, you want to trick a 58-year-old, do something with A.I. [Laughs] I'm constantly posting things, and my younger comedian friends are like, “Dude, you realize that's A.I., don’t you?” And I was like, “No, I didn't.” That's ultimately the issue. A.I. keeps getting better and better. How the fuck do you know what's real and what's fake? BURR: I would say it’s worse and worse. And this is another thing, too: It's completely unnecessary. It's just greed. It's not to make us better. It's so they can employ less of us, pay less of us. It's so noncreative people finally can be creative and not have to pay anybody anything. The Social Reckoning opens in theaters on October 9. Release Date October 9, 2026 Runtime 112 Minutes Director Aaron Sorkin Writers Aaron Sorkin Producers Stuart M. Besser, Todd Black, Aaron Sorkin, Peter Rice Cast Mikey Madison Frances Haugen