Facebook has changed its corporate name to Meta as part of a major rebrand.
The name change, which was announced at the Facebook connect augment and virtual reality conference Tuesday, reflects the company’s growing ambitions beyond social media.
What does name change mean?
It is only the parent company name that has changed to Meta, but its individual platform Facebook will retain its brand name.
Its other individual platforms such as Instagram and WhatsApp, will also retain their brand name.
“Our apps and their brands, they are not changing,” said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg during an annual developers conference.
The re-branding comes amidst critism for the past months stemming from whistleblower Frances Haugen’s trove of internal documents.
The new name reflects the company’s growing ambitions beyond social media.
Meta (formally Facebook) has adopted the new moniker, based on the sci-fi term met averse, to describe its vision for working and playing in a virtual world.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckernberg said that in announcing the new change, it will change its stock ticker from FB to MVRS effective December 1, 2021.
“We’ve learned a lot from struggling with social issues and living under closed platforms, and now it is time to take everything that we’ve learned and help build the next chapter,” said Zuckerberg.
Facebook critics pounced last week on a report that leaked the rebranding plans, arguing the company was aiming to distract from recent scandals and controversy.
An activist group calling itself The Real Facebook Oversight Board has warned that major industries like oil and tobacco had rebranded to “deflect attention” from their problems.
“Facebook thinks that a rebrand can help them change the subject,” the group said last week, adding the “real issue” was the need for oversight and regulation.
Facebook has just announced plans to hire 10,000 people in the European Union to build the “metaverse,” with Zuckerberg emerging as a leading promoter of the concept.
