The Social Network, or, Is Mark Evil?

The movie tells a compelling story. Viewers see the spark of genius at work, the creation of an original idea. Who, exactly, creates that idea is up for debate. Through a nebulous two hours, we are given a path by watching Mark Zuckerberg develop the Facebook in his dorm room and later, squirm through two depositions as Mark is being sued. Mark is made to look like a tragic villain, almost Grecian in the way his life played out (he's known to enjoy epic Greek poetry, so maybe this was an allusion to that). But the director, Aaron Sorkin, admitted in interviews that the storytelling aspect was more important than the facts, which vary slightly from the book the movie is based on (the book's factual account is disputed by Facebook as well). So we cannot take either the book or movie as gospel, as it's told primarily by the Winklevoss twins and Eduardo Saverin, three people who we know comparatively little about in the story, except for the fact that they were losers compared to Mark, the eventual CEO of Facebook and billionaire. Consider Mark as someone who nurtured the idea. The idea may not have been entirely his brainstorm, but he built that idea into a multibillion dollar website that's changed the way we interact online. Convinced the idea for the Facebook is his, Mark does what he thinks he needs to do to protect it. Nothing sinister about that.