Under-Siege Facebook To Reveal Corporate Rebrand

Facebook — whose latest scandal is its admission that it’s allowed users to share information about human smuggling — is set to reveal a corporate rebranding at its annual Connect conference on Oct. 28, if not sooner.

The coming name change is likely to be intended to tie the images of the company and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to a focus on building the “metaverse,” a source with direct knowledge of the matter told The Verge.

Facebook declined to comment on the report.

A rebranding that positioned Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and other holdings under a new umbrella name might also be meant to help address the increasingly negative perceptions of the Facebook brand.

In addition to facing pressure from U.S. and other antitrust regulators, the long-running controversy around the company’s content policies and actions hit new levels earlier this month when former Facebook executive Frances Haugen leaked a trove of damaging internal documents and publicly accused the company of consistently opting for profits over the public good.

In recent days, the company admitted to allowing Facebook users “to share information about how to enter a country or illegally or request information about how to be smuggled” after Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich wrote Zuckerberg to ask about reports that drug cartels and other human smugglers use Facebook to advertise their services to would-be migrants.

Facebook’s metaverse push has to date included releasing AR glasses and other hardware, naming its AR/VR chief Andrew Bosworth chief technology officer, and setting up a dedicated metaverse team.

Zuckerberg will presumably shed more light on the meaning of and vision for the so-far-vague metaverse concept — as well as reveal the new corporate name — in the upcoming announcement.

3 comments about "Under-Siege Facebook To Reveal Corporate Rebrand".
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  1. Jonathan May from HorseTV Global, October 20, 2021 at 11:59 a.m.

    Seems to me to be just millennial obsfucation rather than any meaningful attempt to actually change, profits are king.  Like putting lipstick on the pig.  Oh well, at least half the great unwashed will beleive real change has occurred.

  2. John Grono from GAP Research, October 20, 2021 at 7:47 p.m.

    Hmmm.   I realise that 'metaverse' is a portmanteau word from he prefix "meta" and the stem "verse" (as an abbreviation of "universe").

    I also note that it could also be a portmateau of "met" and "averse".   Ironic.

  3. Craig Mcdaniel from Sweepstakes Today LLC, October 21, 2021 at 2:01 a.m.

    Hey Jonathan, instead of lipstick on a pig, after what I am seen in Facebook, it more like putting lipstick on a hooker.  This might sound funny but there is a thick layer of truth behind this.  

     I was removed by Facebook and then they removed my company. Yeah, the daily double for MZ. What happen is for years on Facebook I have been under attack by both online whatsapp.com porn hookers and also Chinese fake accounts. Because I warned my FB follower about this, MZ desire was to shove those two account into the darkness of nowhere land.

    OR....... as a competitor (Yes I was beating the hell out of MZ in sweepstakes advertising) ........... OR.......... as a favor for another company who I have a beef against but will not say their name.  Take you choice..........

    If the limpy Mark Zuckerberg wants to challenge me to a debate, bring it on.


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