Social media giant Facebook is facing increased scrutiny at the moment. This has led to the company’s rebranding as Meta. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, said on Thursday that the company he established will be renamed, Meta. The new logo is in the shape of an infinity symbol, slightly twisted, almost like a pretzel. Facebook, Instagram, and other apps will continue to exist, but under the Meta banner. At a virtual event to highlight Facebook’s future technology bets, Zuckerberg stated, “I’ve been thinking a lot about our identity with this next chapter. Over time, I wish to be recognized as a metaverse corporation.” Zuckerberg has made a commitment to creating the metaverse, a composite realm that combines online, virtual, and augmented worlds that individuals may navigate smoothly.
According to a source, he believes the metaverse will be the next major social platform and that multiple internet companies will construct it during the next ten years. The new model looks to be one in which the company’s collection of apps, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, will all be under the banner of Meta. This restructuring is comparable to what Google did in 2015 when it founded Alphabet. During an annual developers conference, Zuckerberg stated, “We’ve learned a lot from dealing with social concerns and living on closed platforms, and now it’s time to use everything we’ve learned and help construct the next chapter. I am glad to report that our company has changed its name to Meta. Our objective stays the same, bringing people together; our apps and their branding remain the same.” Critics of the corporation jumped on the renaming, with an activist organization calling itself The Real Facebook Oversight Board claiming that the network is undermining democracy by promoting misinformation and hatred.
In a statement, the organization added, “Their meaningless name change should not distract from the investigation, regulation, and genuine, independent monitoring required to hold Facebook accountable.”
Dozens of news stories have been published based on internal documents obtained by former employee Frances Haugen, which shows Facebook as a company that gives priority to profit over user safety. Since Haugen disclosed reams of internal studies proving executives were aware of their services’ potential for harm, Facebook has been dealing with one of its most significant crises, triggering a renewed US push for legislation. According to reports from a coalition of US news outlets, those records were used to produce a flood of unflattering headlines, including condemning Zuckerberg for his platform’s bending to state censors and exposing how the site has fueled resentment for the sake of keeping users engaged.