Facebook Meta

Facebook has changed its corporate name to Meta as part of a major rebrand. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and CEO of the parent company which owns Instagram, WhatsApp and a host of other social media and VR products,
announced the much-anticipated name change to Facebook Inc’s holding company last week.The company said it would better “encompass” what it does, as it broadens its reach beyond social media into areas like virtual reality (VR). The change does not apply to its individual platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, only the parent
company that owns them.The move follows a series of negative stories about Facebook, based on documents leaked
by an ex-employee. Frances Haugen has accused the company of putting “profits over safety”.In 2015, Google
restructured its company calling its parent firm Alphabet, however, the name has not caught on.Trying to name a
company is difficult. Zuckerberg says he’s chosen Meta, because of its meaning in Greek – “beyond”. It also alludes to
the “Metaverse”, an online virtual oasis that he wants to build.For experts, Facebook, might have a problem with getting everyone to call them Meta.Firstly, the move looks like Facebook is trying to divert attention away from the
trove of negative stories hanging around the company. Critics believe Facebook has done this because the brand has
become toxic. We’ve already seen Senators ignore the name change, with one describing the move as “cosmetic”.

A toxic company by any other name, the consensus on social media seems to indicate, still smells just as foul. And as branding exercises go, Meta looks like it’s a mini flop. Meta, rather obviously, will focus on the Metaverse. The new logo is a blue infinity symbol — the shape of many a naïve tattoo envisioned post an intro to philosophy lecture — and the name change is clearly meant to indicate the company’s pivot to virtual reality.The problem with the rebranding is that it sells the same old schtick: Helping “connect people”; with virtual reality, people will feel “right there” no matter how far apart they are. An unsaid though obvious corollary is that the company formerly known as Facebook will look to control this new VR-headset, algorithm-driven Utopia. Unfortunately, no matter how Meta it becomes, in the real world, the company has yet to address how its apps and algorithms have led to social strife, political polarisation and the devaluation of facts. On Twitter, people pointed out that “Meta” sounds like a designer drug — apt, given how addictive and harmful whistle-blower Frances Haugen’s revelations have shown the company’s products to be.