Facebook Under Siege Changes Parent Company Name To ‘Meta’
Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg announced Thursday that he would change the name of the parent company to ‘Meta’ to represent a future beyond its struggling social network.
The new identifier comes as the social media giant tries to avoid one of its worst crises to date and turns to its ambitions for the “meta-versa” version of the internet in virtual reality that the technology sees as the future.
Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp will keep their names under the rebranding.
“We have learned a lot by tackling social issues and living on closed platforms, and now is the time to use everything we have learned and build the next chapter,” Zuckerberg said during an annual developer conference.
“I am proud to report that as of today our company is Meta. Our mission remains the same when it comes to bringing people together, our apps and their brands don’t change,” he added.
Facebook critics released a report last week that disclosed the rebranding plans, saying the company was aiming to distract from recent scandals and controversies.
An activist group called The Real Facebook Oversight Board has warned that big industries like oil and tobacco have changed their names to “distract from their problems.”
“Facebook thinks rebranding can help them change the subject,” the group said last week, adding that the “real issue” was the need for oversight and regulation.
Facebook has just announced that it is hiring 10,000 people in the European Union to build the ‘Metaverse’, with Zuckerberg becoming one of the main promoters of the concept.
Crisis Mode
The social media giant has been in the throes of yet another crisis since former employee Frances Haugen disclosed numerous internal studies showing executives were aware of the harmful potential of their websites, which has put renewed pressure on regulation in the USA.
Facebook has suffered major crises before, but the current view of island society behind the curtain has fueled a frenzy of devastating reports and reviews by U.S. regulators.
“Good faith reviews help us improve, but I think we’re seeing a coordinated effort to selectively use leaked documents to misrepresent our business,” Zuckerberg said on a conference call Monday.
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Last month, the Washington Post suggested that Facebook’s interest in the metaverse “is part of a larger effort to rehabilitate the company’s reputation with lawmakers and reposition Facebook to shape internet technology regulation of the next wave”.
Google renamed itself Alphabet in 2015 as part of a corporate overhaul, but despite other activities like Waymo Autonomous Cars and Verily Life Sciences, the online research and advertising powerhouse remain its defining entity.
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