After a hundreds of internal documents were leaked by the whistleblower, confronting the wide-ranging scrutiny of the real-world harms from the various platforms of Facebook. After all that, Facebook is now changing its company name as it shifts its focus to the “metaverse.”
On Thursday, Founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg declared that they will change its corporate name from “Facebook” to “Meta”, which will effectively demoting Facebook’s namesake service to being just one of the company’s subsidiaries, alongside Instagram and WhatsApp, rather than the overarching brand.
Owner of the company formerly known as Facebook revealed in a statement that they also plan to start trading on December 1 under the stock ticker “MVRS”.
It is possible that the rebranding which Facebook is doing suddenly could be a part of an effort to repair Facebook’s image and turn the page after a string of PR disasters, including misinformation on its platforms, content moderation failures, and revelations about its products’ negative impact on some users’ mental health.
The company’s growing focus on the metaverse, which refers to efforts to combine virtual and augmented reality technologies in a new online realm, was announced by Zuckerberg during the company’s virtual reality and augmented reality conference Facebook Connect.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about our identity as we begin this next chapter. Facebook is one of the most used products in the history of the world,” Zuckerberg said on Thursday. “It is an iconic social media brand, but increasingly it just doesn’t encompass everything that we do.
“Today we’re seen as a social media company,” he added, “but in our DNA, we are a company that builds technology to connect people. And the metaverse is the next frontier just like social networking was when we got started.”
The name was inspired by the Greek word meta, which means “beyond,” according to Zuckerberg, who said he enjoyed studying classics in school. “It represents the fact that there is always more to build,” says the artist.
Outside of its California headquarters, the company also replaced its corporate sign, which featured a picture of a “thumbs up,” with one touting its new logo: a blue infinity sign.
On Thursday, Facebook did not make any executive changes. On his personal Facebook page, however, Zuckerberg’s job title was changed to “Founder and CEO at Meta.”
When asked by The Verge if he would remain CEO at Facebook in the next 5 years, he said: “Probably. I don’t have a specific date how long I want to be doing this for. I guess what I could say is I’m very excited about the next chapter of what we’re doing.”
