Story at a glance
- Meta is the new corporate name for Facebook, demoting its namesake service to a subsidiary, along with Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus.
- The company plans to focus on its augmented and virtual reality products, Horizon Worlds and Horizon Workrooms.
- The name change comes as Facebook faces ongoing criticism from whistleblower Frances Haugen and a federal lawsuit.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook will be changing its corporate name to Meta, just as the company is dealing with whistleblower accusations of prioritizing profit over user safety.
Zuckerberg made the official announcement during the company’s annual conference on Thursday. The name Meta reflects the company’s shift to focus on digital world experiences, which consists of virtual reality and augmented reality.
Meta will become the new holding company that will encompass Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus. The company has already changed its corporate Twitter account to reflect the name change.
Facebook began testing its virtual reality ideas before the COVID-19 pandemic and so far this year has invested $10 billion to its metaverse project. That’s double what it spends on safety and security, according to The Guardian.
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Zuckerberg first publicly introduced his company’s VR product Horizon Workrooms in August on CBS This Morning. Zuckerberg described it as the next generation of the internet. “So you can kind of think about it as, instead of being an internet that we look at, right, on our mobile phones or computer screens, it’s an internet that we are a part of, or that we can be inside of.”
Horizon Workrooms emcompases the shift to working remotely, allowing users to create and design virtual workspaces. Horizon Worlds, which was introduced last year, allows users to create more personal digital spaces that can be shared with friends and family. Both programs require an Oculus VR headset.
During Thursday’s conference, Zuckerberg acknowledged the controversy around the timing of his company’s name change.
“I know that some people will say that this isn’t a time to focus on the future, and I want to acknowledge that there are important issues to work on in the present. There always will be,” said Zuckerberg. “So for many people, I’m just not sure there ever will be a good time to focus on the future. But I also know that there are a lot of you who feel the same way that I do.”
Frances Haugen, whistleblower and former Facebook product manager, released a flurry of internal company documents earlier this month that indicated the company allowed misinformation to spread on its site ahead of the 2020 election and that it was not doing enough to counter hate speech, as well as creating a toxic mental health environment for teen girls.
The company also faces a lawsuit by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that seeks to force Facebook to restructure or sell off its assets, Instagram and WhatsApp, to break up what the FTC views as a monopoly over personal social networking in the United States.
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