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Facebook To Rebrand Around the Metaverse, Will Still Be Just As Awful

by Rudy Sanchez on 10/20/2021 | 2 Minute Read

On Tuesday evening, The Verge reported that Facebook intends to change its name and rebrand as it focuses on building products and services for the metaverse. It's a broad term, but essentially, the metaverse stacks digital and physical layers to provide users a new way to experience both the online world and meatspace. While Facebook will still exist, name and all, the plan is to house all its products like WhatsApp and Instagram under one company name.

Facebook already owns virtual-reality technology company Oculus, and earlier this year, it created an internal team devoted to Zuckerberg’s metaverse ambition in addition to signaling plans to hire 10,000 additional staff to work on metaverse-related projects.

Mark Zuckerburg’s aggressive push to firmly establish Facebook within the metaverse comes amid growing criticism over their negative impact on society and at a point where most people are unaware of the metaverse concept. The word metaverse itself was popularized in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash, and it represents the convergence of digital and real worlds that users access utilizing virtual reality booths and goggles in a near-future where economic collapse has created an anarcho-capitalist dystopia where business magnates and organized crime run the planet. While that sort of future may seem unappealing to most users, it may just be a little too prescient if Facebook’s destiny is to be the firm that builds it out. 

According to The Verge, the new name for Facebook is closely guarded, with some members of senior management unaware of the new name, though the tech outlet is reporting that CEO Zuckerberg intends on discussing the name change at the social media firm’s upcoming Connect conference, starting October 28th.