After 17 years, billions of dollars in profit and some minor controversies involving the erosion of world democracy, Facebook has changed its name.
From now on, the parent company will be known as Meta, to reflect the company’s shift in focus to the next digital frontier: the metaverse (or virtual reality to non-nerds).
Facebook knows that our associations with it are less than favourable these days.
The Wikipedia page “Criticism of Facebook” has a forbiddingly long contents list, including entries on tax avoidance and copyright violation, right through to traumatising its employees and allowing the publication of content that denies various genocides.
Founder Mark Zuckerberg and his company have been busy trying to revamp its image, particularly in the wake of the platform’s Cambridge Analytica scandal. This renaming probably demonstrates their awareness that the whole thing has become toxic – that making noises, as they have been lately, about factchecking posts and shutting down sources of disinformation isn’t going to cut it PR-wise.
There is a long tradition of companies renaming themselves after a scandal.
Facebook seems to want a slice of that pie.
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