OAKLAND, Calif. — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company is rebranding itself as Meta to encompass its virtual-reality vision for the future, what Zuckerberg calls the “metaverse.”
Skeptics point out that it also appears to be an attempt to change the subject from the Facebook Papers. This leaked document trove has revealed the ways Facebook ignored internal reports and warnings of the harms it’s a social network created or magnified across the world.
Zuckerberg says he expects the metaverse to reach a billion people within the next decade. The metaverse, he says, will be a place people will be able to interact, work and create products and content in what he hopes will be a new ecosystem that makes “millions” of jobs for creators.
The announcement comes amid an existential crisis for Facebook. It faces legislative and regulatory scrutiny in many parts of the world following revelations in the Facebook Papers.
In explaining the rebrand, Zuckerberg said the name “Facebook” just doesn’t encompass “everything we do” anymore. In addition to its primary social network, which now includes Instagram, Messenger, Quest VR headset, Horizon VR platform, and more.
“Today, we are seen as a social media company,” Zuckerberg said. “But in our DNA, we are a company that builds technology to connect people.”
Metaverse, he said, is a new way. Zuckerberg, a fan of classics, explained that “meta” comes from the Greek word “beyond.”
