After 17 years of being called Facebook, the social networking giant has a new name. Facebook’s corporate entity is now ‘Meta’. Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg announced the change at the company’s live-streamed virtual and augmented reality conference sharing that the new title captured more of the company’s core ambition to build the metaverse.

“I am proud to announce that starting today, our company is now Meta. Our mission remains the same, it’s still about bringing people together. Our apps and our brands they’re not changing either. From now on, we’re going to be metaverse-first, not Facebook-first,” said Zuckerberg at the event. Among its family of apps are other popular platforms Instagram and WhatsApp.

The new corporate identity comes at a time when the company has seen a sustained backlash, specifically when a whistleblower and a former employee leaked a bunch of documents detailing the missteps Facebook has made over the years. This report also revealed how 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.

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Recently, the company was hauled up again for being harmful to children.

Last year, Facebook had set up an Oversight Board for a critical independent check on Facebook’s approach to moderating some of the most significant content issues.

But just last week, Facebook’s Oversight Board in its quarterly transparency report said that the social media giant had not been 'fully forthcoming' with the board on its ‘cross-check’ system.

The panel commented that Facebook 'failed to provide relevant information to the 'Board' on issues of how the social media company makes decisions and allows some high-profile users to be exempt from content restrictions. The board even concluded that Facebook provided incomplete information.

All of these events have resulted in a tarnished image of Facebook. Hence the new corporate identity, it seems, is an effort to move its core branding further away from the continuous negative publicity surrounding its most popular product.

Facebook had been laying the groundwork for a change for months now. In fact in September, in a blog post called “Building the Metaverse Responsibly,” Facebook announced a $50 million fund dedicated towards research ‘to ensure their products are developed responsibly.’

This isn’t the first time that a major tech company has gone through a name change. Back in 2015, Google rolled out a new corporate structure of its own by creating a parent company known as ‘Alphabet’. And after six years, Google remains a subsidiary of Alphabet, but most people still refer to the company or its subsidiaries as Google.

“Right now, our brand is so tightly linked to one product that it can't possibly represent everything that we're doing today, let alone in the future. Over time, I hope that we are seen as a metaverse company, and I want to anchor our work and identity on what we're building toward,” said Zuckerberg.

But the big question is will Meta help the corporate brand shed Facebook’s baggage and toxic image?

(Edited by : Bivekananda Biswas)

First Published:Oct 29, 2021 1:13 PM IST