Jesse Eisenberg has distanced himself from Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, saying: “I don’t want to think of myself as associated with somebody like that.”
The 41-year-old actor was Oscar-nominated for his portrayal of Zuckerberg in David Fincher’s 2010 film The Social Network.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Eisenberg explained that he hadn’t been “following [Zuckerberg’s] life trajectory, partly because I don’t want to think of myself as associated with somebody like that.
“It’s not like I played a great golfer, and now people think I’m a great golfer. It’s, like, this guy who is doing things that are problematic, taking away fact-checking, and [the] safety concerns. Making people who are already threatened in the world more threatened.”
Asked if he is concerned by Zuckerberg’s actions, Eisenberg replied: “I’m concerned just as somebody who reads the newspaper. I don’t think, like: ‘Oh, I played the guy in the movie and therefore...’ It’s just I’m a human being and you read these things about people who have billions upon billions of dollars, more money than any human person has ever amassed, and what are they doing with it? Oh, they’re using it to curry favor with someone who’s preaching hateful things.
“That’s what I think of, but not as somebody who played [him] in a movie, but just as someone who’s married to a woman who teaches disability justice in New York and the lives of her students are going to get a little harder this year.”
Meta, Zuckerberg’s company that oversees Facebook and Instagram, announced earlier this year that it is planning to do away with fact-checkers.
Two members of Meta’s independent Oversight Board, Alan Rusbridger, Independent columnist and former editor of The Guardian, and novelist Khaled Mansour, subsequently warned that misinformation will “undermine public trust” and stressed that the impact on the credibility of sites such as Facebook could be “exorbitant” and could lead to wide civil disturbance.
Eisenberg discussed his wife Anna Strout’s charitable work in a recent interview with The Independent, saying: “My wife comes from a family of activists.
Strout’s mother Toby Strout ran a domestic violence shelter, and her brother Anthony Arnove, co-founded a non-profit arts organisation.
“I married into a brilliant left-wing family, and my wife has shaped every thought I’ve ever had as an adult,” Eisenberg added. “So I’m a supporter of all social movements that lift up those who need a lift.”
