Facebook to undergo rebrand following whistleblowing and metaverse news
According to a trusted source obtained by The Verge, Facebook is going to rebrand itself.
Facebook has announced that it will change its name. This news follows hot on the heels of the revelation from a whistleblower that Facebook has been managing its users’ safety poorly and Mark Zuckerberg’s plans to develop the metaverse. According to The Verge, the rebrand is going to be announced in one week at the Facebook Connect conference on 28th October.
What is the metaverse?
“It’s a virtual environment,” explained Zuckerberg. “We can be present with people in digital spaces. And you can kind of think about this as an embodied internet that you’re inside of rather than just looking at. And we believe that this is going to be the successor to the mobile Internet.
“You’re going to be able to access the metaverse from all different devices and different levels of fidelity from apps on phones and PCs to immersive virtual and augmented reality devices.
“Within the metaverse, you can build a hangout, play games with friends, work, create and more. You’re basically going to be able to do everything that you can on the internet today, as well as some things that don’t make sense on the internet today like dancing.
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“The defining quality of the metaverse is presence, which is this feeling that you’re really there with another person or in another place. Creation, avatars and digital objects are going to be central to how we express ourselves and this is going to lead to entirely new experiences and economic opportunities.
“I think that, overall, this is one of the most exciting projects that we’re going to get to work on in our lifetime,” he added.
Building the metaverse
In recent news, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has been emphasizing that his company is working on launching The Metaverse. Two years ago, Facebook announced a new logo for its parent company to not confuse users between itself and the platform Facebook. Earlier this week, he announced his plans to hire over 10,000 people across the EU in order to support his plans to build the metaverse. This will seek to distinguish its social media platforms better WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram from its metaverse developments such as its RayBan Smartglasses.
Andrew Bosworth, the Facebook executive who heads up Reality Labs, said the glasses were “designed to help people live in the moment and stay connected to the people they are with and the people they wish they were with. [Ray-Ban] has been nothing short of stellar in this partnership, and through their commitment to excellence, we were able to deliver on both style and substance in a way that will redefine the expectations of smart glasses.
These glasses are a step towards Zuckerberg’s desire to create AR glasses that blend the digital and physical worlds. He acknowledges that these glasses are a step in that direction. “There’s a bunch of work that still needs to be done there,” he said, “but while we’re working on that long-term vision, I think it’s also helpful to kind of work our way up and say ‘What’s possible and what can we unlock for people today?’ And that’s what this product ends up being.”
“Our mission is to help build tools that will help people feel connected any time, anywhere,” said Facebook’s Monisha Perkash. “We want to create a sense of social presence, the feeling that you’re right there with another person sharing the same space, regardless of physical distance.”
“We’re introducing an entirely new way for people to stay connected to the world around them and truly be present in life’s most important moments, and to look good while doing it.”
Poor press for Facebook
Former Facebook employee, Frances Haugen, has accused the tech giant of placing profit above public health. Haugen revealed herself as the Facebook whistleblower after leaking a cache of internal documents that place Facebook in a damning light. She shared the several thousand documents with the Wall Street Journal, revealing that the company was lying about its progress on handling misinformation and violence.
“The thing I saw at Facebook over and over again was there were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook. And Facebook, over and over again, chose to optimize for its own interests, like making more money,” she said.
Haugen joined Facebook in 2019 as a product manager on its civic integrity team, which focuses on election-related issues globally. She cites her decision to join Facebook as a personal mission to combat misinformation. However, her decision to expose Facebook stemmed from her shock at company policies that prioritized profit over public safety. “The version of Facebook that exists today is tearing our societies apart and causing ethnic violence around the world,” she said.
READ MORE:
- The Facebook whistleblower demanding accountability
- Why did Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp’s outages last so long?
- Ray-Ban Stories: Are Facebook and Ray-Ban’s smart glasses a privacy nightmare?
- Matterport and Facebook AI Research to release the world’s largest dataset of 3D spaces
“No one at Facebook is malevolent,” Haugen told 60 Minutes. She said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, “has never set out to make a hateful platform”. Despite this, the company still needs to take responsibility for its choices, she said.
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