Facebook name change; meet Mark Zuckerberg's 'Meta'

What's in a name? - Said William Shakespeare, Everything seems to be the reply from Mark Zuckergerg that is re-christening Facebook to Meta.

“The metaverse is the next frontier,” Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said in a presentation at Facebook’s Connect conference, held virtually on Thursday. “From now on, we’re going to be metaverse-first, not Facebook-first.”

Meet Meta
Zuckerberg, in his hour long presentation made it clear that they no longer are just a social network company and Meta reflects the company’s growing ambitions beyond social media, highlighting a shift to an emerging computing platform focused on virtual reality.

“Right now, our brand is so tightly linked with one product that can’t possibly represent everything we’re doing today,” Zuckerberg said, “let alone in the future.”

The company also unveiled a new sign at its headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Thursday, replacing its thumbs-up "Like" logo with a blue infinity shape.

Re-branding, questioning the timing

The re-branding and move away from being just a social media company comes amid a tsunami of news reports after Frances Haugen, a former employee turned whistleblower, released a trove of internal company documents to news outlets, lawmakers and regulators.

The reports show that the company is aware of many of the harms its apps and services cause but either doesn’t rectify the issues or struggles to address them. More documents are expected to be shared daily over the coming weeks.