By Charlotte Smith

The Facebook logo, created by Zuckerberg. Image Credit: Facebook

Goodbye Facebook, and hello Meta. Mark Zuckerberg has announced the rebranding of his billion-dollar company, Facebook, which will now take the name Meta. The social media giant’s rebrand was announced at the company’s annual Connect Conference last month. 

Facebook was created by Zuckerberg and his roommates at Harvard University in 2004. It was initially created as a way for his Harvard classmates to stay connected, but it spread to other universities and eventually grew to become the largest social networking platform in the world, with over 2.8 billion users and a net worth of 926.8 billion dollars. 

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta. Photo credit: Anthony Quintano via Flickr.

After 17 years of being the CEO of Facebook, Zuckerberg has a new title as the CEO of Meta. Once the rebrand was announced, Alex Heath, a writer for The Verge interviewed Zuckerberg, where Zuckerberg said that this move was about “solidifying the social media giant as being about the metaverse, the future of the internet.”

The new Meta logo. Image credit: DeZeen.

Facebook started building Meta six months ago, but Zuckerberg said that he has had the idea to rebrand since he bought Instagram in 2012 and Whatsapp in 2014. He has already put around 10 billion dollars into the venture. In the same interview, he said, “I think we’re basically moving from being Facebook first as a company to being metaverse first.” 

The exact details of Meta have not been released, but the idea is that one unified system will connect users to all social apps and platforms formerly under the Facebook brand. Users will not need separate accounts for each platform. Instead, one account will give access to all platforms. Zuckerberg said, “I think that there was just a lot of confusion and awkwardness about having the company brand be also the brand of one of the social media apps. I think it’s helpful for people to have a relationship with a company that is different from the relationship with any specific one of the products, that can kind of supersede all of that.”

Zuckerberg continues to say that he is building a metaverse. But what is a metaverse? Heath states that “the concept originates from Snow Crash, a dystopian novel from the 1990s in which people flee the crumbling real world to be fully immersed in a virtual one.” 

This sounds daunting. Do people really want to leave the world behind and go fully virtual? In the past year, with the global coronavirus pandemic, more things have become virtual. Former office jobs are now online, schools are online, dinners with friends are online, and holidays have even been celebrated online. The world is moving towards a more virtual future, which could explain Zuckerberg’s rebrand. 

The possible future Metaverse. A place where citizens experience the world through a virtual avatar. Image credit: The Drum.

Zuckerberg believes that in the next few years people will be living their lives in a virtual, 3D reality. Charles M. Blow, a writer for The New York Times, wrote that “Zuckerberg painted a picture of the metaverse as a clean, well-lit virtual world, entered with virtual and augmented reality hardware at first and more advanced body sensors, later on, in which people can play virtual games, attend virtual concerts, go shopping for virtual goods, collect virtual art, hang out with each others’ virtual avatars and attend virtual work meetings.” Zuckerberg believes that this new reality will be backed by not only Meta but by various other companies as well. Meta is a way for Zuckerberg to encourage and push his workers to the next level so that users can experience life and technologies in new ways. 

Frances Haugen, a whistleblower who released Facebook’s critical documents. Picture credit: Web Summit via Flickr.

Critics of Zuckerberg have raised suspicions over the timing of the launch of Meta, believing it to be a way to distract from the recent criticism that the network has been facing. The rebrand comes after whistleblower and Facebook former employee Frances Haugen released critical information from internal documents about how Facebook has promoted hate speech and misinformation over its platforms.

While it may seem like suspicious timing, given that the whistleblower spoke in court just days earlier, Zuckerberg stated that the current criticism did not influence the rebranding of Meta. He said, “even though I think some people might want to make that connection, I think that’s sort of a ridiculous thing. If anything, I think that this is not the environment that you would want to introduce a new brand in.” 

The Washington Post reported that Haugen “alleges that the company prizes growth and profits over combating hate speech, misinformation and other threats to the public. The alleged failings include permitting terrorist content, drug sales, hate speech and misinformation to flourish, while also failing to adequately warn investors about the potential risks when such problems surface, as some have in news reports over the years.” 

The Instagram logo. Image credit: Instagram.

Facebook, now Meta, encompasses other popular social media platforms, such as Instagram and Whatsapp. Zuckerberg has come under harsh criticism recently over the safety of these apps and for Instagram promoting unhealthy body standards, leading to an increased amount of eating disorders and mental health challenges among teenagers. 

Despite the harsh criticism of Facebook and Instagram, Haugen thinks that Facebook, under whatever name it takes, will not change its toxicity unless Zuckerberg retires. She said, “until the incentives change, Facebook will not change. Left alone, Facebook will continue to make choices that go against the common good, our common good,” 

While critics believe that Meta is a cover-up to help Zuckerberg escape from the criticism he is receiving, if Meta works, and his proposed metaverse becomes a reality, in the words of Kevin Roose from The New York Times, “Mr. Zuckerberg’s metaverse would usher in a new era of dominance — one that would extend Facebook’s influence to entirely new types of culture, communication and commerce.”