It feels like buzz around The Social Network has exploded the last two days, but there's pretty much only one place you won't be hearing about it. That's right, friends--Facebook has nixed the marketing of The Social Network via its available marketing platforms.
According to All Things Digital, Facebook has prohibited the film's presence in the site's marketing sections, citing that Facebook doesn't allow outside advertising to reference Facebook itself. The move by the social networking site is also likely in response to the less-than-favorable light in which the film portrays the founders of the website. Facebook reps commented that Sony was unwilling to play within the established advertising guidelines for this film
In the end, this little bit of irony just seems to heighten the grand, weird, self-referential experiment that is a movie about the world of web 2.0, and, in all likelihood, will do probably do little to hinder the buzz surrounding the film. That's the way social media works; we'll all do the talking about it for Sony, and it'll end up on folks' newsfeeds and walls, with the same--if not greater--visibility than if paid Facebook advertisements were part of the package.
