Social media giant Facebook is planning on changing its name as part of a total rebrand of its platform.
Rebranding?
It is expected that the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg will announce the plans at this year’s annual Connect conference on October 28th, according to a report by Verge.
The expected rebrand plan is to place Facebook’s sister sites and platforms like WhatsApp, Instagram, and Oculus under the one umbrella name.
The “Metaverse”
The Facebook CEO is expected to cite the change to reflect the site’s ongoing focus on building the “metaverse”, which is a virtual reality world created to make socializing online even more immersive. Facebook recently announced their hiring of 10,000 EU staff to work on the metaverse.
Controversy
The move comes after a series of events dampened the social media giant’s reputation. Is it possible Zuckerberg is looking to distance his hugely successful company from the allegations put forward by whistleblower and ex-employee Frances Haugen?
These allegations were put forward to the US Congress last month, alleging negligence or reluctance to deal with hate speech festering on the site as well as the declining mental state of youths using Instagram, due to a perceived impact on profits.
After the hearing on October 5th, the site, and its sister platforms, Instagram and WhatsApp went down for over 5 hours. In an apology posted to the site, Zuckerberg blamed routine maintenance disrupting all of Facebook’s service and assured users that it wouldn’t happen again.
